Where do they get idiots like this?

Current low birthrates among highly educated women pose a challenge to the U.S. economy and may compound existing social problems, says David Ellwood, Black professor of political economy and dean of the Kennedy School of Government. As a result, the United States faces an imminent shortage of well-educated workers aged 25 to 54. That may mean lower productivity growth, less competitive U.S. companies, and even greater inequality between America's rich and poor.

"We only want the smart ones barefoot and pregnant." And he has a chart!

(Bemused hat tip: Newmark's Door.)

I had thought people understood the story with Churchill, but it appears that obfuscation will rule at many newspapers. Today's example is an editorial in the PioneerPress by a Native American who thinks the issue is academic freedom, which she believe Churchill is being denied.

His style, however, is akin to using a garden hoe in an operation that called for a surgical scalpel. Implying that those at the World Trade Center deserved to be killed is outrageous. Not surprisingly, his essay has provoked only a knee-jerk reaction with none of the intended dialogue he had hoped to inspire.

As an American Indian, I must admit that I rankle a bit at defending Ward Churchill. The bottom line, however, is the issue of academic freedom. A state legislature should not have the power to fire an academic because he or she promotes unpopular ideas.

I confess to not being enthused with responses like this one from Newt Gingrich, who really should know better. As reported by Jim Gegharty:

We ought to say to campuses, it’s over…We should say to state legislatures, why are you making us pay for this? Boards of regents are artificial constructs of state law. Tenure is an artificial social construct. Tenure did not exist before the twentieth century, and we had free speech before then. You could introduce a bill that says, proof that you’re anti-American is grounds for dismissal.

Talk such as this leads me to agree with David Beito, who thinks there's a parallel between Ward Churchill and Larry Flynt:

In the film, Flynt's attorney argued that if Americans know that the First Amendment protects "even Larry Flynt," they can rest assured that their own free speech rights will be secure.

Could it also be said that if professors and students (including many conservatives and libertarians who are currently under siege in higher education) know that if academic freedom protects "even Ward Churchill" they can have greater assurance that their own academic freedom will be secure?

Of course, the parallels are not complete because Churchill, unlike Flynt, is not only accused of offensive speech but of fraud.

The last point is important, because those who want to see Churchill punished have plenty of weapons at their disposal, without need of recourse to blowing up the tenure system or checking people's Americanism. Such talk smacks of the debate that began (and thought ended) with Sweezy.

Sweezy, of course, was an avowed Communist who refused to take a loyalty oath, something which Colorado has now had Churchill sign. How much further down the road to that case will Churchill travel, and how possible is it that he will become the new poster boy of academic freedom? And why would the Right want to make him a martyr?

There's plenty of evidence he's a liar and a fraud, and that the fraud goes to the matter of his tenure. Moreover, the university is culpable for at least not doing its due diligence in granting him tenure in the first place. Sack him if you want to, but be careful what you sack with him.

Which they are, give or take a few years.

I mentioned last week that we first learned about the resignation of the entire student finance committee here at SCSU by way of an op-ed written by its chair in the student paper. Today's copy of the paper runs the story as page one news. The rift seems wider than even Mr. Bah, the outgoing SFC chair, represented.

"We've had people say that they will never vote to approve any funding for athletic groups," Bah said. "We've had other organizations that were denied because there was some issues that student government supported and they did not. They denied their request for money."

Student government president Hal Kimball said that every member of student government votes differently. ...

"I don't persuade anybody with a vote. I don't debate or tell a senator to vote for this or vote for that," he said. "The only time I do is when the issue is extremely vital, and then I will pass the gavel."

Vice-chair of the finance committee Yee Ling Mui said that Kimball has the ability to press his beliefs onto others both inside and outside of meetings. "They are not going to come out and tell you 'we don't support groups that don't support us,' but it's obvious they do," she said. "He passes the gavel a lot."

SFC is an appointed body and its decisions are approved by student government. But cui custodiet custodiens? In the story we also learn that Kimball's vice president had to be talked down off the ledge from resigning.

In an e-mail sent on Feb. 13 and obtained by the University Chronicle, student government vice-president Bianca Rhodes resigned from her position. In the letter, Rhodes listed various reasons for her resignation.

Following are several passages from the letter: "I really don't care if there will be some negativity against me for my resignation because honestly, I did what I could, with the time that I had. I have tried to run meetings, and they have ran away from me and turned into chaos and I think that is because I believe that I have probably became simply a doormat," "There are so many accomplishments that we could have done this year but didn't happen" and "Senators need to do their job. I have been noticing that this is not happening."

Judicial council, however, ruled that the letter did not constitute a resignation because of its electronic format and ruled that Rhodes remain vice-president. After meeting with Kimball, Rhodes decided to hold her position for the semester.

What do you do with a student government that appears out of control? This question is even more vital now that it is trying to seize the pursestrings over student activity fees. Paraphrasing P.J. O'Rourke, giving student activity money to unchecked student government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

The NARN fellows are fairly gushing after our visit Saturday with state senator Michele Bachmann. (One 'l' and two 'n's she says. I understand explaining how to spell one's name better than most, Mr. "Every-other-letter's-an-A".) A picture of us with her is up on Captain's Quarters, and related coverage is also on Shot in the Dark and Fraters Libertas.

There's no doubt she has charisma, and she is an easy interviewee that made the hour with her quite a pleasure to do. But I think the one thing she will have going for her is that, like the person she's replacing, she's been tested under fire. She knocked off a 28-year incumbent in the Republican primary in 2000, was redistricted and won re-election, and continues to attract more negative feedback from the left (as Mitch's post discussed) than even David Strom or Phil Krinkie, who are constantly knocked for the crime of not confiscating more of your money. I'm sure we'll have the dump Bachmann people post a link in our comments along with hit pieces in the major papers. I encourage you to visit their site and see what motivates her opponents. They give her, paradoxically, more credibility with the social conservative base of many suburban Republicans who were the backbone of Kennedy's election victories. On the show Saturday, she downplayed that part and emphasized her support for TABOR, the subject of a great editorial in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required, alas).

I am not proclaiming Bachmann the favorite, nor even my favorite just yet. She's definitely to the right of me on many social issues. But if you're going into a key battle for an open seat, it's hard to argue with choosing someone who has experience in battle, and someone who presents herself well in public. Bachmann has both those qualities; as we say in baseball, she's a tough out.

Just a note for local readers sent to me by the Students Fostering Conservative Thought at St. John's University.

We are hosting David Horowitz to speak on Academic Freedom on Tuesday night. The event will be at 8:00.

The talk, titled "Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America’s Future" is in the Steven B. Humphrey Theater. The talk is part of a series created by the Foundation for Active Conservative Thinking, which is the latest evolution of the e-Pluribus program at the Center for the American Experiment.
I'll have more on academic freedom later today. I hope to make it to see Horowitz, though I have a rehearsal for the Passion Play earlier that evening that is supposed to run until 9pm.

One of the "products" (and in this case, I think scare quotes are appropriate) that came out of the settlement over an anti-Semitism suit at St. Cloud State was a mandated publication that was to trumpet affirmative action efforts locally. Now on its fourth issue, it has gone from being a glossy paean to its diversity efforts (take for example this issue from last summer) to now including strong advocacy points. In the latest issue online the publishers included a list titled "28 Common Racist Attitudes and Behaviors that Indicate a Detour or Wrong Turn into White Guilt, Denial or Defensiveness." (Inhale.) It does not appear they printed this part of the article due to space considerations, but it merits your attention to see what people who head anti-racist initiatives on our campus think. Here are just a few examples.

1. I’m Colorblind.
“People are just people; I don’t see color; we’re all just human.” Or “I don’t think of you as Chinese.” Or “We all bleed red when we’re cut.” Or “Character, not color, is what counts with me.”
REALITY CHECK + CONSEQUENCE:
Statements like these assume that people of color are just like you, white; that they have the same dreams, standards, problems, and peeves that you do. “Colorblindness” negates the cultural values, norms, expectations and life experiences of people of color. Even if an individual white person could ignore a person’s color, society does not. By saying we are not different, that you don’t see the color, you are also saying you don’t see your whiteness. This denies the people of colors’ experience of racism and your experience of privilege.

13. The Penitent.
“I am so sorry for the way whites have treated your people.” Or “I am sorry for the terrible things that white man just said to you.”
REALITY CHECK + CONSEQUENCE:
While there is probably no harm in the “sorry,” if it is not attached to some action taken against racism, it is most often just another expression of white guilt. Being an ally to people of color is not limited to an apology for other white people’s behavior, it must include anti-racist action.

22. Smoke and Mirrors.
You use the current PC language; you listen to the right music; we state the liberal line; you’re seen at the right meetings with the right people. You even interrupt racist remarks when the right people are watching and when there is no risk to us. You look like an anti-racist.
REALITY CHECK + CONSEQUENCE:
This is the “Avon Ally,” the cosmetic approach. People of color and other white anti-racists see through this pretense quickly. This pseudo-anti-racist posturing only serves to collude with racism and weakens the credibility of sincere white anti-racists.

23. I Have To Do My Personal Work.
“I have to do my personal work first.” Or “Ending racism is only about changing personal attitudes.”
REALITY CHECK + CONSEQUENCE:
If you assume that personal reflection and interpersonal work are the end of your job as an anti-racist, you would stay out of the public, institutional arenas. You would ignore cultural racist practices that don’t include whites personally. Whites wouldn’t take action, until they have finished ridding themselves of all racist conditioning. And since that complete “cure” will never happen, you would never take any institutional or cultural anti-racist action.

Within the article to which this piece was attached, the author indicates the transformative, childhood-correcting nature on American campuses:

Children do not choose to learn racist lessons. Our generous child wisdom tells us racism is wrong, but there is no escape from the daily catechism of racist teaching. We resisted the lies, the deceit and the injustice of racism, but without the skills to counter the messages. The conditioning fills one with fear, suspicion and stereotypes. You internalize your beliefs about people of color, yourself, other white people and about being white. Those internalized attitudes become actualized into racist behavior.

Who does she think is providing that daily catechism? This is the problem on American campuses, that faculty think the world around them is racist and that taxpayers are paying them to provide corrective measures. This is what they think their job is: Reprogramming. Re-engineering.

And what does this have to do with the settlement of an anti-Semitism suit?

I'll be in for at least the first two hours. There will be a Rocketman sighting from his self-imposed exile, along with a visit from Sixth District Congressional candidate Michele Bachmann. (Students out at St. Johns tell me there is a students-for-Bachmann blog now. SJU CRs have some other good stuff cooking I'll tell you about on Monday.) In the third hour we have a guy who might be related to Art Schlichter, the former Colts quarterback who bet on football. This guy is a good bet to talk about rock and roll, since he used to play for some band. We'll ask if he bets on football.

See the show site, and find the stream noon to 3pm Saturday.

Douglas Bass has an email response to a question of Jeff Johnson, candidate for state attorney general about faith and public service. These are not words I expect to hear from my elected officials in these times:

The verse that has stuck with me more than any from my childhood is the familiar Micah verse: "What does the Lord expect of me but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with my God." Doing justice and loving kindness, in my opinion, easily translate to political decision-making.

Walking humbly with God is a little more problematic in the public realm. To me, this means understanding that I'm not in control of my life or my public image; God is. It also means that I shouldn't strive to be the center of attention or the most important person in the room. That is particularly difficult in politics, as publicity is more sought-after than anything but campaign contributions in our perverse little world. Nonetheless, I have tended to work behind-the-scenes and not seek out the cameras in my work in St. Paul, as I believe that this is the way I'm most effective and is the manner in which God intends me to work.

We hear that verse in Micah 6:8 often around my Lutheran church. I like the way it's presented in The Message:

"God has already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, and don't take yourself too seriously. Take God seriously."

Leaders who take God seriously will find it difficult in the public realm, but not impossible. Doing justice without taking yourself too seriously is very difficult.

Like I say, I don't expect to hear these words from elected officials, and I expect even less for people to act on them. My expectations are low. If Rep. Johnson can raise them, he'll earn my respect and my vote.

Frequent reader and commenter Stephen Frank takes to task the letter by Mary Clifford on the anonymous posting at the Times (as discussed here.) Read the whole thing: I don't ruin that by giving you his ending as the money quote.

I wonder about the wisdom of having the university take on the Times. There is a symbiotic relationship between the two of us — we need them and they need us. There are limitations in taking on those who buy ink by the barrel. They are going to have the last word. More to the point I agree with President Lyndon Johnson who said taking on the media is like pissing against the wind.

On a cold February day in Minnesota I have better things to do.

Well done, good professor. Well done.

If you thought the HURL job description was bad, take a look at this ad for a Campus Climate Coordinator at the University of Wisconsin at Lacrosse.

The Campus Climate Coordinator is responsible for facilitating programs that will improve the campus climate and diversity awareness. The candidate will be required to communicate and provide education programs for multiple constituencies. ...The Campus Climate Coordinator will:
* Conduct needs assessments and make programmatic recommendations to the University units for campus climate improvements;
* Coordinate ongoing diversity efforts generated by the comprehensive plan for faculty, staff, and students in the area of cultural competency and nondiscrimination;
* Assist in the creation and development of a Diversity Resource & Curriculum Infusion Center which will focus on diversity training and research for the UW-La Crosse campus;
* Develop, promote, and deliver educational programs and training in areas related to diversity awareness (race, gender, disability, homophobia, sexual harassment, etc.) for an increasingly diverse workforce (building individual and team skills);

I'm often fascinated by the reliance on "diverse workforce" as a reason for these programs. When you talk to faculty about what they do to help students develop job skills they'll often say they are not a vocational school, yet when it comes to diversity they suddenly are worried about how our student will fit into "an increasingly diverse workforce".

(H/T: Reader Pat Mattson.)

Time to be nicer to Chad, since he shared with me a letter asking for an explanation of the water-pricing policies of the Denver water public utility. This is going to end up being used as a case study for one of my principles classes, I think.

The drought-savvy ways of Denver Water's customers are pinching the finances of the state's largest water utility, and that could mean an extra rate hike this year.

Chad's correspondent is trying to figure out why the utility would raise rates when people aren't using enough water; thinking about demand would mean Denver Water should decrease price, right? Maybe, maybe not. Since water is in essence a zero marginal cost item -- it costs practically nothing to pump one more gallon to a household -- the job of Denver Water, if it was a profit maximizer, would be to maximize total revenue; that more or less water is used is irrelevant, as long as it doesn't run out. It would do so by raising price if the demand for water was relatively inelastic -- that is, if the responsiveness of consumers to increasing prices wasn't too high.

But,

The utility had forecast 2005 water sales of $169.5 million, about 11 percent below normal. But even before the summer watering season hits, customers are reducing use, causing utility officials to prepare for reductions of as much as 20 percent to 30 percent, and water sales of just $144.8 million...

If it was just a reaction to the 8% increase in price Denver Water imposed on Jan. 1, that would not be inelastic at all. The problem is that the drought has led DW to engage in a conservation program which, if successful, shifts demand. And it appears they were quite successful. So the elasticity point, and the raising price to increase quantity demanded point, are out the window.

What happened? The key is here:

Denver, directed by city charter to keep its water rates low, has tried to keep a lid on water price hikes.

DW is a regulated utility, told to keep prices low and not maximize profits. They also are allowed to raise prices to cover their costs. So if the conservation is successful, you have less water being sold to cover the same amount of expenses as they had before. Thus prices have to rise in response to balance DW's budget. (Principles students: you are setting price equal to average cost with the regulated monopolist, and if you're on the downward sloping portion of the AC curve, this is the result.)

Sentences that make the Elder scream:

Television ratings for last year's Stanley Cup finals were lower than that of this year's Westminster Dog Show.

Woof! Source. (H/T: Skip Sauer.)

Minnesota Democrats Exposed has an exclusive from state DFL chair Mike Erlandson that Patty Wetterling, the losing DFL candidate in the Sixth District in Minnesota last November, is not running for federal office -- either the Dayton seat or the same CD6 seat. Wetterling is supposed to make a statement tomorrow on her plans.

This might explain why the second tier candidates for the CD6 seat have been coming forward, like Jay Esmay. Remember that Wetterling was recruited because the DFL could not find another suitable candidate to run against Kennedy last year. With Wetterling to the sidelines, the DFL is down to the backbenchers and thus the Republicans will come out in force to challenge frontrunners like state senator Michelle Bachmann, Cheri Yecke and potentially state representative Phil Krinkie.

Hugh is reading Amy Klobuchar's announcement of forming her committee right now to look at the Senate seat.

UPDATE (2/25): Wetterling now says she's interested in the Senate seat.

Robert KC Johnson reports on a conference being put together by CUNY's faculty union called "Educators to Stop the War".

Virtually all of the panels confirm the perceptive observation of Emory’s Mark Bauerlein that an academy lacking in intellectual diversity contains too many members who seem “to have no idea how extreme [their] vision sounds to many ears.” So the conference features presentations with titles such as “American Fascism?” or “The Politics of Fear & Compulsory Patriotism” or “Globalization, the Permanent War Economy & the War on Terror” or “Countering Campus Right-Wing Attacks: ABOR, the David Project, HR 3077.” I hadn’t realized that being pro-Israel or opposing professors’ intimidating their students represented a “campus right-wing attack.”

Sounds like fun. All we get is one lousy lecture on white privilege.

As noted in many newspapers and blogs, three Minnesota guardsmen were killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. One of them, Jesse Lhotka, was a graduate last May from SCSU. This morning's campus paper contains reminisces of Jesse.

Lhotka graduated as a finance major from SCSU. The news of his death hit many of his friends, associates and fellow campus members, including Lhotka's advisor William Hudson, extremely hard.

"I was shocked and deeply saddened," Hudson said. "The finance majors are a family and we lost one of our own. We are a tight knit group."

Hudson said that Lhotka was great to have in class because he was always upbeat and was a very motivated student. "He was a good student and he took his work seriously," Hudson said. "He came to class every day and he was very conscientious. He had a positive attitude and a positive outlook."
...
David Christopherson, a finance professor at SCSU and director of Insurance Issues Research, had Lhotka in his classes and said he was an asset to the academic environment.

"Jesse was an extremely conscientious student in the two classes he had with me," Christopherson said. "Jesse was a joy to know every time he would visit you in his office. He had a unique combination of mirth and maturity and I was deeply honored to know him."
...
Keith Meyer said that Lhotka was a great friend.

"He was one of the best friends you could ask for," Meyer said. "He was always in a good mood. He was so spontaneous. If he gets an idea in his head, he wants to do it. If there was something going on that seems fun, he was usually there. He was one of those people that once you met him, you always knew him and he always knew you."

Meyer said that he and his friends threw a goodbye party for Lhotka's graduation from SCSU and that was the last time he got to see his friend.

"We had a little goodbye party for him, and I said to myself 'I didn't know if this would be the last time I see him‚' but it obviously is," Meyer said. "I'll miss his jokes and his whole attitude."

Lhotka is survived by his wife Stacey in Alexandria. We pray for Stacey and mourn Jesse's death as well as those of his fallen comrades.

UPDATE: Newest Minnesota Organization of Bloggers member Zero-Two-Mike Soldier has lots of coverage of the event. Just keep scrolling.

It's odd that this appears in an opinion column and not in a regular news story in the University Chronicle.

On Feb. 17, 2005 the entire Finance Committee resigned. The letter of resignation stated student government's executive board actions created an "extenuating hostile environment," and also stated "the executive board's objectives and our goals do not align." Some of these frustrations stemmed from "...consistent and open engagement in bias representation of students organizations."

SFC felt its "ethical and business principles" were compromised. SFC saw only two options; follow the politics of being made "puppets" of student government by consistently "chastising" organizations the executive members disliked, or resign. The resignation letter also voiced other concerns relating to "meddling in our daily activities, threatening to impeach based on unfounded claims and... contempt toward finance members." The committee's resignation letter quoted the president of student government, having said "we hired you and you must do what we say," in so doing "violating SFC policies, and unfairly representing students."

As I understand the student handbook at SCSU, any decision by the student finance committee has to be approved by 2/3 vote of student government, so in some sense there is a veto of SFC available to student government anyway. But this, in light of student government's continued radicalism on issues like Support the Court, would seem to indicate that student government is not only practicing Soviet ideology but also Soviet political methods. If I wrote this opinion piece, I'd worry about late-night visitors.

At a meeting SFC discussed the future of this leadership noting "Student Government's attempt to put their hands on everything will simply lead to their downfall and a misrepresentative legacy." As one SCSU administrator noted, "leadership fails when it tries to micromanage or put it's hands on everything for the sake of power."

I wonder why the student newspaper, uniquely positioned to get at this story, hasn't investigated and reported more on this development?

When will professors ever stop trying to use their classrooms as places to force change. At Rhode Island College, a social work student who did not want to take part in an assignment in his "Policy and Organizing" class (I am not making that up!) because of the ideological bias of the assignment and program, was told he should consider leaving. After the student had acquiesced, he wrote a paper that argued against the position of the group he joined. The paper was failed by the professor, who wrote, “Regardless of the content, application of theory, and critical analysis, you did not write from the perspective you were required to use in this academic exercise. Therefore, the paper is must [sic] receive a failing grade.”

RIC is a state university. In a state university, can a faculty member require a project that has ideological positions with which the student does not agree? Does academic freedom for faculty allow a professor to require the perspective from which a student can write a paper?

There's much more to the story. FIRE is representing the student, and on their blog Robert Shibley notes,

The real genesis of Felkner’s problem is that he believes that some government social welfare programs—specifically, some programs that RIC’s social work faculty supports—don’t help the poor, and, more generally, that he is more “conservative” in his views than the average social worker. RIC’s School of Social Work has made it quite clear that holding beliefs not in lockstep with those of the school is out of bounds, and it is backing up this stance with real penalties.

There's a similar story from the Social Work department here at SCSU, but I'm the wrong guy to tell it. Here's hoping Scholar Jack can catch us up.

It's a day for bad campus email. On our announcement list -- which should be used for the business of the university -- there comes a solicitation for donations for a CodePink ad to mark the second anniversary of the Iraq invasion.

CODEPINK St. Cloud is planning to run another ad in March – two years since the U.S. invasion. If you support our effort to raise awareness about the costs of war as well as other issues, we invite you to add your signature (it will be published in the paper). A full-page standby ad costs $650 (cheaper because the Times decides when to run it). We suggest a $10 contribution for each signature, but more is gratefully appreciated and less or none is acceptable.

An entertaining fellow in another department decided on a lark to solicit for his Lutheran church in the Cities trying to build a larger sanctuary. I am still hoping for a few dollars to go watch the Red Sox get their championship rings.

Your taxpayer dollars at work.

I get a note this AM from our faculty union, alerting me to a letter in today's RedStarTribune.

I am one Minnesotan who is very tired of our Legislature and governor continually using phony, shaky and unfair means to balance the budget.

Accounting shifts, indiscriminate application of higher fees, shifting property taxes and excessive increases in college tuition have formed the backbone of past efforts to secure sufficient funds to balance the budget. This year the governor has added gambling schemes. None of these regressive solutions meets the long-term revenue needs of the state.

This is utterly silly. There's nothing phony about higher fees, as they generate real dollars. So too do increases in college tuition at public universities, where subsidies constitute a middle class welfare program. And both of these are voluntary decisions -- you do not have to use the parks if the fee is too high, and you don't have to go to college. In that sense, the word "regressive" makes no sense, as it applies only to government confiscation of resources, not a voluntary transaction. The same applies to gambling, though the decision to exploit the risk-taking and short-sighted behavior that can account for poverty in some strikes me as cynical and of questionable morality.

But what exactly does one mean by a long-term revenue need? What is it that the government needs to do, in this person's view? Well, you should have a hint from the first line of this post, in that the faculty union sent this.

The elephant in the room is the governor's pledge not to raise taxes. Either the governor has to agree to alter his position or the Legislature has to assert its appropriate authority to protect the future of Minnesota by seeking a genuinely balanced and bipartisan approach that includes both spending cuts and tax increases.

The writer, not revealed by the newspaper (did he sign it as a private citizen?) is a member of the union's governmental relations committee. Don't you think the readers of the RST would have a better understanding of the letter if this was revealed?

A long-term revenue need is an increase in his salary.

Doug and Flash are discussing Social Security. Flash says:

The best Insurance policy I have right now is the money withdrawn from FICA. There is a potential return of premiums. The premiums help support the security of our society. It is more then just a retirement account, it is what helps individuals dig out of awful situations. It helps provide for families when a parent dies prematurely. It assists in providing dignity to those faced with untimely dilemmas that they could not control.

In part he's right. There are four parts to Social Security, or which retirement is one. While Flash focuses on the I in FICA, I prefer to focus on OASDHI, which is "Old Age, Survivor, Disability and Health Insurance." That's the actual name of the Social Security Act as passed in 1965. It did start initially only as a retirement plan and not an insurance plan (to answer Doug's update), but back then it was known as OAI. The S, D, and H came in the fifties and sixties. (UPDATE: Scholar Dave points out the S came in 1939, two years after Helvering. While I'm looking this up, disability insurance was added in 1956, and Medicare in 1962.)

Now the H part is Medicare, which is not part of the current discussion, but the S and the D are parts for which Flash would be correct. A few weeks ago the WSJ (subscribers link) published an article which described how those parts come into play for several people. They constitute about 17% of Social Security payments. The 2% that would continue to be collected in Social Security under the Bush Administration's privatization plan would, in good part, have to continue to pay this amount. The remainder would be a safety net, means-tested (which I take it would please Doug.) So in some sense, the insurance that Flash is concerned about is untouched by the Bush plan.

One of the under-reported items in this debate is whether that is a good insurance policy. Flash thinks so, but doesn't compare it to the possibility of private alternatives. I haven't read enough about this point, and it seems to be something missed in the discussion.

A few days ago a senior faculty member sent an open letter to President Saigo to the university's discussion list, indicating broken agreements surrounding the break-up of the former Applied Psychology program. At his request, I have uploaded the letter here. Please understand that this is his writing; however, a bit of background would help.

When I was interviewed by Doug Williams at Bogus Gold last weekend, I mentioned that the initial concept of SCSU Scholars was to be an internal mechanism for conservatives and other victims of the social justice McCarthyism that pervades this campus to communicate freely with each other and with alums, trustees and the public at large. This blog has become something different over time, mostly as a response to the pull of readership and to a smaller extent because I was doing all the writing and was not content to just write about that.

The impetus for this blog dates back to the row on campus over a series of letters published by a black graduate student who vented about racism in the APSY program. The fallout exposed a deep schism in the program which led to a split, which only one side wanted. The letter below tells the story in more detail. But I should point out that the story was already documented on a separate site by the side of the debate that is represented in this letter. I should disclose that I designed and installed the site for those faculty back in 1999 and 2000. The materials were collected from a variety of affected faculty and from web sources. You are invited to investigate that site if you wish to learn more.

Ironically, when this letter appeared, our friend Miss Median appeared, hoping that it would not make it into the press. To her, "sunlight is not the best disinfectant". That, and the author's request, are what lead me to post it. The university, in its usual fashion, has not responded to the letter.

I have no independent information, though, about this situation and cannot verify independently its claims. People seeking more information should contact him and not me. I am simply honoring a request from some old friends who have been through an ordeal professionally. I will also extend the courtesy shown here to other affected faculty.

Here then is the letter.

St. Cloud is the dateline location for a New York Times article on bars trying to take advantage of the increased interest in Texas Hold'em.

Not 20 minutes into a No Limit Texas Hold'em poker tournament at the Granite Bowl bar and grill here, State Senator Mike McGinn pushed his entire pile of chips into the pot. State Senator Dave Kleis hardly hesitated before following suit, and State Representative Tom Hackbarth quickly joined the "all in" chorus.
"No wonder we've got budget problems at the state," cracked their colleague, State Senator Brian LeClair, who had folded his own cards long before.

"Well, it's other people's money," Mr. McGinn said of the taxes that fill state coffers. "It's kind of the same thing."

Actually, the eight lawmakers gathered around the green felt here on Saturday afternoon, all but one Republicans, were not playing for money at all, but for T-shirts proclaiming, "Poker is Not a Crime" - and to make a point. Betting with chips that had been seized last summer in a police raid on the Granite Bowl's free weekly poker tournaments, they came to support a bill sponsored by Mr. Kleis, who represents St. Cloud, that would explicitly legalize Texas Hold'em (but not other forms of poker) so long as prizes do not top $200.

The PioneerPress calls this "creeping towards Vegas" with a little slam at Dave Kleis, but it's hard to see what the problem here is. The PP's editorial Sunday complained of "full-blown, state-sponsored casinos", while Kleis' bill does no such thing. It allows modest gambling within privately-owned bars, a far cry from the slot machines proposed by two DFLers, which the PP also decried. "To expand state-sanctioned gambling is to erode Minnesota's quality of life," it says. In a state with so many reservation casinos, that's a hard claim to support.

Via The American Mind, I read that Nobel Laureate Ed Prescott doesn't think Social Security is a problem. Speaking at a Cato Institute conference,

We hear a lot about transition costs. "But I'm going to use some economic jargon, not 'political accounting' jargon. There are no transition costs. Re-labeling debt is not a cost.

Steve Landsburg explains further,

Is Social Security headed for bankruptcy? Sure.

Should we care? Not a bit.

Here's why: We pay lots of taxes. Some of those taxes are called "Social Security taxes." We get lots of government benefits. Some of those benefits are called "Social Security benefits." Bankruptcy means that in 10 to 15 years, Social Security benefits will exceed Social Security taxes.

The looming bankruptcy is both absolutely real and absolutely insignificant. You could reverse it in an instant by changing a definition or two. Keep benefits exactly as they are, but call only half of them "Social Security benefits"; call the rest something else, like, say, "Geezer Pleasers." Social Security taxes would exceed "Social Security benefits." Voilŕ, no more bankruptcy.

My students learn that the circular flow is a two-way street: money moves in one direction, goods in the other. We have promises that in 2020 so many goods will flow to retirees. We will produce an amount of goods. If we are going to have more to pay them in the future, we have to create new capital, invest in R&D, and move to an economy that can pay them more and leave enough to keep the new generation of workers not worse off than the current generation. You either have to have more capital, or find ways to make each worker more productive. All of this requires more savings.

Landsburg makes the key point:

If you want to address the Social Security crisis of the future, you must adopt laws that encourage saving in the present. There's nothing else you can do.

Personal accounts can do this. Changing the cap for Social Security payments doesn't.

What really matters, though, is not private accounts. It's the saving and pro-growth policies that private accounts will encourage. If we can get the same things in other ways, that's just as good.

Readers might think this contradicts my statement last week that the battle over Social Security is about transition costs. It does not. The battle is there since changing the timing of debt, while having no changes in the allocation of resources, will cause some shifts in the distribution of resources.

Cato is keeping a nice quick fact archive for the rest of you bloggers wishing to arm yourselves.

PiPress editor Mark Yost read a fifth-grade American history textbook, and he didn't enjoy it very much.

If you wonder why people today don't understand the Second Amendment and other important elements of American history, look no further than this textbook.

Not surprisingly, it takes the predictable left lane down history's highway. For instance, the Spanish are justifiably chastised for their treatment of the Incas and Aztecs, but there's no mention of virgins being thrown into volcanoes. If this textbook were your only source, you'd think the natives lived in an utter state of equanimity before the evil Europeans arrived.

Ditto for slavery. The text makes the argument that slavery existed for eons in Africa, but it wasn't that bad.

"In some parts of Africa slaves could rise to positions of honor and trust. After a time, they could be given their freedom."

Not so for America.

"Little by little, however, life for Africans in Europe and in the Americas began to change. One of the most important reasons for this change was that there were not enough workers in the Americas."

You can just see the seeds being sown in the young minds for future lessons discrediting capitalism and the widespread benefits of the Industrial Revolution.

Yost goes on to describe how biographies of important figures from the American Revolution are breezed by, or slanted by some weird anecdote like Thomas Paine being fired as a tax collector because he wanted a raise. And Yost complains that history is dry.

That's not news, of course, and writers of textbooks certainly try to spice up their books, which is one reason for finding anecdotes like the one about Paine. So I don't think anecdotes and dryness are the problem. The problem, from my perspective, is that the attempt to reduce the complexities of the Atlantic System to something that a fifth-grader can understand. Economic historians don't think plantation trade was decisive in creating the Industrial Revolution, but it certainly can be argued that it sped up development in the U.K. and north America. How do I get that point across to a ten-year-old? So I simplify it, and in the process I create this image of Africans in Europe and America being put in more dire circumstances so that rich whites could get more cotton. This allows liberal teachers -- or even those who just haven't learned and thought the issues through -- to bolster their complaints against industrialized economies and call for restitution, and to include their students in the crusade.

Alas, the problem is probably not going to go away by the presentation of evidence. The best one can do is a counterfactual exercise: "How much less would the U.S. and the U.K. have developed in the absence of the slave trade?" is not a question you can answer scientifically. And worse, focusing on it doesn't answer Ronald Reagan's question that Yost closes with:

In his farewell address, Ronald Reagan asked: "Are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world?"

Reading this textbook, it's clear that the answer is a resounding "no."

But he'll be able to get away with it, because men look bad in this. He first trots out the Becker test, which he says that Larry Summers offered in his now-famous lunch talk.

At one point in his talk, Summers trotted out a thesis first articulated by Nobel Laureate Gary Becker, who argued that discrimination harms the discriminator. Becker's point is that it is inefficient to allow non-economic factors to affect a market decision. Therefore, the discriminator will achieve sub-optimal results, either in terms of consumption or profits.

Suppose that in math and science, some departments discriminate against women. Then according to the Becker-Summers argument, those departments, because they are willing to choose second-rate men over first-rate women, will be at a disadvantage relative to departments that are either nondiscriminatory or which discriminate in favor of women. Summers argues that we do not see evidence of these "profit opportunities." As Summers admits, this is a limited argument, because it does not speak to possible discrimination earlier in life. However, it does give pause to anyone who wants to give the automatic "True" response of discrimination.

A very old paper in sports economics by James Gwartney and Charles Haworth (JPolEcon 1974) demonstrated that those baseball teams which integrated earlier had a competitive advantage over those who did not. This is evident to anyone who remembers both Jackie Robinson and Pumpsie Green. It's an example of the Becker test.

The Becker test doesn't hold, Summers and Kling agree, for women in the sciences. So what's going on? Kling offers two new hypotheses, based entirely on casual empiricism. The first is "dominance behavior":

Males are very concerned about "whose is bigger," and this shows up particularly when a group of males gets together for the first time. They compare, they boast, and they try to assert superiority. I noticed this when my first-year graduate school class at MIT met on the lawn the day of student orientation. It made me uncomfortable then, and such behavior has made me uncomfortable ever since.

...My sense is that women find male-dominance behavior annoying. They particularly dislike being treated as "irrelevants" during meetings. I can understand their point of view. I avoid the American Economic Association meetings, in part because I am sickened by the flattery and the Show Off/Put Down. ...

So to Lawrence Summers' list of possible reasons that women are under-represented in some fields, let me add annoying male-dominance behavior. To the extent that one must put up with or join in such behavior to succeed in largely-male fields, I could see where otherwise qualified women might not have the taste for it.

I know well that AEA behavior, having witnessed it at many such meetings. I will note that the women I see at the meetings display the same behavior, but that may be a defense mechanism, or it might be that the field attracts women who exhibit the behavior. In graduate schools as well, that behavior is quite common.

Kling's other theory, that men attribute success to themselves and failure to others, while women do the opposite, doesn't persuade me in terms of the question of women in the sciences. But I don't know as we need any more.

Ralph at Division of Labour continues to wonder about rebates. I have been wondering about something I saw Saturday. Driving back from the Cities, I was having a coughing fit thanks to the creeping crud (CC) that Mitch gave me. I decide I need some DayQuil, as Five Days of the Zinc had ameliorated some but not all of the symptoms of the CC. I'm also called by Mrs. Scholar from the hospital with her mom, and told I have to eat there with her. Since hospital food sucks, I figure I'll tank up beforehand.

So I go to a Walgreens in Maple Grove and stand before the dizzying array of cold remedies. Next to the DayQuil is the Walgreens knockoff. "Buy 1, get 1 free" says the sign. But I really only need a couple days of dosage, since I'm pretty sure I'm on the downside of the CC. I look closely: "$3.49 for 1, or buy one get one free" and the regular price is in fact $3.49. The NyQuil knockoff is priced the same way. I grab two of each.

At the counter I ask, "So if I buy one it's $3.49?" "Yes." "And if I buy two?" "Same price." Yet the cashews are on sale -- remember, I'm hungry too -- and they are priced $5.99 for one or 2/$10.

Question: What accounts for the difference in pricing? And what does Walgreens gain by pricing the cold remedies in this way? One possible answer: They are paying you to store the cold product, since winter is ending (at least for most places, if not in Minnesota) and demand for cold remedies will wane shortly. Somehow I don't think that's the right answer though, and I'm stuck. Your suggestions?

Of such thoughts are an economist's day made.

Somehow the Fraters forgot to ask me if I would host the "satellite party" by which one confirms membership in MOB.

If you submit an application for membership to one of the Northern Alliance blogs via e-mail and are accepted into the MOB, you MUST attend a future MOB event to maintain your status. In other words, being accepted into the MOB is contingent on attendance at an upcoming MOB event.

There is going to a huge MOB blowout this summer. Before then we'll also have a smaller event as well. Details will be forthcoming. If you've just joined the MOB, plan on hitting at least one of these affairs.

We realize that these MOB events have been rather Twin City-centric, which poses challenges for some of the out-state MOBsters. We're looking into the possibility of having King host a satellite MOB event in St. Cloud to make the logistics a bit easier.

Well, now that you have asked, sure! I don't have to do this in St. Cloud, though it would be nice if for no other reason than I could finally have a beer at one of these things without fear of falling asleep on I-94 around Hasty. There are two brew pubs here that would make a nice spot (I would prefer the second only because I know the owner and can get a private room). But what about doing a satellite in Duluth? Mankato? Alex or Moorhead or Marshall or Bemidji or Thief River Falls? Anybody out there?

Drop a line for dates and locations. I'll coordinate with the Cities people to see who we can rope into this to make it a true MOB affair.

And I have a pad to take care of the stamps, Kathy.

I just lost about thirty minutes of my life figuring out when and where the U.S. Dept. of Commerce changed the definition of national income, which I only realized when a colleague started talking about it in the hallway. He's retiring soon so he doesn't have to redo his notes. I do. And lots of papers to grade, too. So if you think I'm blogging lightly today, you're right. And atop all that, I need more DayQuil.

No, I'm not complaining about the weather here, which has really been OK the last few weeks, but the degree to which the blogosphere is shining light on troubling places. You know the Easongate/GannonGuckert/Ward Churchill stuff, but here's some other places you should be watching as well.

• The story of Hans Hoppe, the professor at UNLV who was reprimanded for using an example of homosexuality to argue for differences in economic agents' time preferences, had his reprimand removed from his file.
  

  "Professor Hoppe does not assert that materials he presents are the opinions of UNLV, nor has he ever purported to speak for UNLV. Whether anyone in the university agrees or disagrees with Professor Hoppe's theories or his opinions is not ultimately relevant," [university president Carol C.] Harter wrote in a statement sent to students and media. "Teaching is of its nature and origin provocative."

  "I believe professors are entitled the freedom to teach theories and to espouse opinions that are out of the mainstream or are controversial," Harter said in a statement released on Friday.

  He's still pressing for an apology and a sabbatical, and I hope he gets his letter. The sabbatical claim is a common request of faculty who think they've been wronged; I've never really liked the practice, but chances are there's precedent at UNLV and if so, he's entitled to ask. Interested readers should follow the case on the Mises and Liberty&Power blogs.
  
• Meanwhile, another attempt to shut down a critical student-run blog is ongoing at St. Lawrence University. The university has blocked campus computers from loading the blog and is suing the bloggers for copyright infringement. The blog's name -- Take Back Our Campus -- doesn't even have the name of the school in it, while FIRE has already won a victory for a similar student blog that had the name of UC-Santa Barbara. Hard to see how they can win there; I hope the students at SLU get FIRE to take up their cause. Quid nomen illius and Academy Girl are covering this story. Notes Jeff,
  

  The slight twist is that this time it's self-described liberal students fighting what they say is a conservative administration, but the political orientation of the participants hardly matters. What stuns me is how thin-skinned and hysterical the SLU administration is being. Do they not realize that these cranky students are well on their way to becoming folk heroes while the president of SLU already looks like an insecure, tyrannical jackass?

  One can only hope.
  
• Last, I hope Hugh Hewitt reads this article in the latest Economist on Robert Scoble. Scoble is a blogger who writes about software and has been hired to do so by Microsoft.
  

  But Mr Scoble is at his best when he opines ruthlessly on Microsoft's technology. When Google or Apple or anybody else makes a better product, he blogs it. “I've been pretty harsh on Microsoft over the years,” he says. This gives him credibility, and thus power. If somebody somewhere takes a swipe at Microsoft that is unfair, Mr Scoble can cry foul and actually have his readers concede the point.

  Inspired in part by Mr Scoble's success, executives at other companies—so far, mostly in tech—are starting their own blogs. Most daringly, Jonathan Schwartz, number two at Sun Microsystems, a large computer-maker, has blogged his thoughts about possible mergers in his industry, and thrown punches at Hewlett-Packard, IBM and other rivals. Bruce Lowry, PR boss at Novell, another software firm, also wants to get his executives blogging. Boring old press releases—where everybody is constantly resigning “to spend more time with the family” and what not—are totally ill-suited for responding to most PR issues, such as rumours or independent commentary, he says. He can imagine blogs completely replacing press releases within ten years.

  
  I wonder if the university would like to give me time from teaching to blog? Anyway, the unnamed author of this article is singing Blog's song. Chad the Elder noted this last week.

Ah, the power of sunlight!!

Commenting on a STrib editorial (why do you torture yourself so, Mitch?) Shot In The Dark comments:

The Gannon/Guckert 'kerfuffle' (there's a word that's gone from cute to intolerable in record time)

The word "kerfuffle" now appears even on a billboard for a local cafe, suggesting you eat there to get away from the k********. That is bloody hell enough. The k-word is hereby banned from Scholars. MOB and other blogrolled writers are warned that repeated use of this word may lead to deletion from the Scholars' List of Honor.

Early in my career teaching I taught an interactive TV class, broadcasting from SCSU to the local technical college and a second site at a reservation school up near Onamia. The classes were also put on tape. I watched them for about fifteen minutes and realized how bad I was. Many nervous habits, largely a function of not being able to pace the front of a classroom. I mean hideously bad. Burn-the-tape bad.

I've gotten better, but after reading Doug's transcribed SCSU Scholars Interview of me not nearly enough. I used to use "OK" as a pause to catch my thoughts. I broke myself of the habit ... but now I use "and so". Count them in the interview, and bring your clicker. And the ellipses? Those mark a fish changing direction in the water. I neither speak nor think in a continuously linear way. I don't think I can change that, and I don't know as I want to.

A transcription is an odd way to watch yourself speak. I've never had an interview transcribed before. But looking at it, it is kind of fun to remember a conversation by reading.

The New Criterion picks up the job description at St. Cloud State's Department of the 3.7 GPA, as linked to on Friday, and connects this to Ward Churchill.

The point to bear in mind, however, is that Ward Chruchill is not an aberration: he represents what has become the academic mainstream. Ditto the Kirkland Project. Start scratching the surface of your local college or university. What will you find? You'll find things like this advertisement for a job as--God helps us--an "Assistant Professor of Human Relations & Multicultural Education" at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. Really, you can't make this stuff up.

See also these thoughts from Cold Spring Shops.

Commenting on my post about Bastiat's window, in which I considered the Lancet study an example of the fallacy, Tim Lambert thinks I'm mistaken.

that is what the study measured: the change in the death rate. If it had gone down, the study would have found a net benefit.

...Roughly half of the 60,000 violent deaths were due to the skyrocketing murder rate in Iraq, not military or terrorist operations. And the 15,000 dead reported in the press will only include some of the civilian deaths, so it is absurd to suggest that all of the difference were insurgents. The Lancet study indicates that at most 5% of the excess deaths were of insurgents. (Though with a subsample this small there is enormous room for sampling error.)

I appreciate Tim trying to think this through, but the Lancet study (you need a subscription to actually read it) doesn't do quite what he says. As Tim points out, "there is enormous room for sampling error," because the actual error range around the death total (the original 100,000 -- I don't see a note on the error band on the 60,000) is +/-94,000 on the total figure. That sampling error comes from how the study is done, which bears some notice. This study was done by sampling a set of 30 or so cities in Iraq and then extrapolating. Thus the sampling error.

But this misses my larger point, which is that those who want to rely on the Lancet study have to assume that the reporting of people about recent deaths and reporting on deaths during the Saddam period were the same. Many of Saddam's dead were not murdered in the presence of witnesses; there is no indication that the authors of the study charged Saddam with a death for a missing person. It was noted in the IHT that the authors sought death certificates to verify the interviewees' memories, but eventually felt it was too insulting in many cases. Which did they believe and which did they not? Also, information was collected during a period when the success of the war against the insurgents (vis-a-vis the war against Saddam); since some were uncertain that America would stay and see through the mission -- thank you, John Kerry -- deaths caused by Ba'athists was probably suppressed by fear of recrimination. Third, about 37,000 of the deaths the Lancet study uses come from a count by anti-occupation groups. (REDACTED: See below.) They also chose both to change their list of randomly sampled areas so they didn't have to drive as much; this meant they stayed close to Baghdad and the Sunni triangle, probably oversampling high-casualty areas. Last, comparing an equal length period between Saddam's reign and occupation assumes that both death rates were at "steady state" levels. As I said in the original post last month, in the immediate aftermath of any war comes a period of heightened violence. Comparing a period under a long-term brutal dictator to a transition phase in the development hopefully of a democracy doesn't meet the test of ceteris paribus needed to validate the study.

A proper study would estimate the steady state rate of democide under Saddam versus the transitional death rate increase in the postwar period. That is the test of what is seen versus what is not seen. My conclusion that the latter is less than the former is speculative, but the Lancet study does not dissuade me, and Lambert's claims focus only on that which is seen. Thank you, Tim, for providing us yet another example of the wisdom of Bastiat.

UPDATE (2/23): Lambert and his drone indicate in comments that they think most of this is mistaken. I have put in the comments page references to the parts they contend are wrong to show that I am referring to the article itself. In the process I found that I had misread a point I initially made about the use of the Kifah numbers by the authors. That's what I get for writing under the influence of Nyquil late on a Saturday night. I have struck through the line that was wrong, and I regret the error, and thank Lambert for pointing it out. On the rest, however, I think he's wrong and that he hasn't brought facts to the debate, only his biases.
The Lancet article includes only one violent death of the 7438 preinvasion individuals they interview (see Table 3). That fact alone should indicate the lack of measurement of prison/torture chamber deaths under Saddam.

The Northern Alliance Radio Network hits the road this weekend with a broadcast 12-3pm from the White Bear Lake Super Store. AM 1280 the Patriot is lining up some prizes for those who attend, and Mitch indicates that we will have pizzas, maybe even Green Mill pizzas. Them I like. And Mrs. Scholar has been bugging me for a new ride, so who knows what you might see tomorrow. Should be a great time, please come!

This showed up on Ed Tufte's Q&A boards today. It's one of the best pieces of programming I've ever seen. It has a blog attached that had for example this entry:

My NameVoyager is designed to give you a sense of names as history. In certain cases you can see the stamp of a single individual -- type in Shirley to see the huge impact of Shirley Temple in the '30s. At the opposite extreme, you expect fo find names sunk by a negative personal association. So one of the most examined names in the Voyager is Adolph.

I wouldn't have thought of that one. My wife and my ex-wife had songs with their names as the title around the time they were born, but not quite at the right times. I also mark the decline of 'Ernest' as predating Hemingway.

Likewise, mine is the 789th most popular name in the decade I was born, and fell out of the top 1000 by the 1970s. My cousins who use the Latin form were much more popular in the 1950s but dying off now (#745 in the 1990s.)

At least, when I was born, King was more popular than Regis.

We college professors talk often about building critical thinking skills, and we're frustrated when students accept things said to them without question. This is a perception often of the web, that information out there is unsafe because it is unfiltered. Most of the critiques of the Blogosphere by the MSM are thus.

We find that they're learning it in the classrooms:

I said to my colleague that it seems like we've not really evolved that much at all in terms of our thinking about learning, but that I thought that might be changing, primarily due to the effects of the increasing transparency the Web seems to be bringing to many areas of life...journalism and politics, for instance. Two places where traditional ideas are being seriously challenged by our new ability to particpate and by the demand, of some, for a more open accounting of process and methodology. And so, I said, I felt like in time, education would be affected by that as well, in potentially very positive ways. ...

'You have to read some Marx,' my friend said. 'Don't you know that those in power will let the masses convince themselves that are in control until they become a bit too powerful, at which point they'll step in and shut it down?' (Or something along those lines.)

'So what are you saying?' I asked. 'You think if the Web gets too disruptive to education 'they'll' try to censor it?'

His answer was, for all intents, yes, that if things ever got to the point where the status quo was seriously challenged, there would be serious attempts to limit the technology."

And then, in a subsequent post, he shows us how one such censor would work.

My colleague's brother is a high school principal in a major East Coast city, and during a phone call they had yesterday, the conversation turned to the Internet.

"My teachers are complaining that the quality of their student papers is just getting worse and worse," the principal said. "And it's because they're getting such bad information from the Internet. Are there any lists of 'reputable' sites out there that we can get our kids to use?"

My colleague, who has had the misfortune of sitting through many of my information literacy harangues, and who is a very smart person himself, said "Why don't you do some professional development for your teachers and show them how to teach kids to find good sources?"

"Oh, no," the principal said. "They won't want to do that. They don't have the time for it."

"Well, don't you think the kids need to learn how to use the Internet effectively as a research tool?" my friend said.

"I think it's better for everyone if we just give them a list of sites they can use when they do their papers," the principal said, "and tell them they have to have a certain number of those resources in the final product."

My fellow Scholars are hooting over this job ad from the Department of the 3.7 GPA. There's not much difference from this one last summer, except that this one is a permanent, tenurable job. Scholar Jack notes "The State is using tax money to create permanent jobs for which only members of one political party will be considered." This time we're sending the ad copy out to some legislators asking for guidance over legality and propriety.

Tenure requirements, however, will probably be harder than those this guy faced. Well, maybe not.

...there was the MOB, which begat the M.A.W.B.

And the Scholars saw it, and it was good.

Larry Summers has put up the transcript of his remarks about hiring women in the sciences that have caused a furor at Harvard. He has also continued his daily seppuku with a letter to the faculty there:

Though my NBER remarks were explicitly speculative, and noted that "I may be all
wrong," I should have left such speculation to those more expert in the relevant fields. I especially regret the backlash directed against individuals who have taken issue with aspects of what I said. In this University, people who disagree with me - or with anyone else - should and must feel free to say so.

Eason Jordan could not be reached for comment. At Division of Labour, Ralph says,

My bet is that Summers in on the next train to the gulag while [Ward] Churchill sings Rocky Mountain High.

That'll get you a 'heh'.

UPDATE: William Saletan:

In short, Summers got a bum rap. So was his analysis of biological and cultural factors sound? The transcript answers that question, too. The answer is no. Summers grossly overreached the evidence, and he made a couple of glaring logical blunders.

Yes, I can see that. But logical blunders in a lunch talk are not hanging offenses.

Across the email announcement list on campus yesterday:

I am writing to inform you of an incredible opportunity! GLBT Services will bring Scott Turner, a well-known east coast based transgender (female-to-male) entertainer/educator, to St Cloud State University ...

He will be performing two of his original and nationally acclaimed transgender-education productions, “Underground TRANSit” on Friday evening and “Debutante Balls” on Saturday afternoon. I will have more materials about these productions to you shortly.

Incredible opportunity. I can scarcely contain my excitment.

Well, look what Underground TRANSit is.

In Underground TRANSit, Emory grad Kt Kilborn relates her life experience as a boy-identified homecoming queen candidate and tackles the issue of gender conformity.

I added emphasis, but I think you get it. Here's more from the play's own website.

“ Underground TRANSit” is a one-act work of spoken word theater that combines
rhythmic storytelling, rock ‘n roll, and a touch of drag in the journey of one person to a gender identity. Created as a work of feminist activism as well as of art, sincerity and connection with the audience is key, while anecdotes from a homecoming queen turned gender renegade test the boundaries of “normative” gender and sexuality values with humor and criticism, and accessible gender theory. It’s not didactic, it’s not confessional: rather, it’s honest and playful, daring and touching.

At least it isn't didactic. Didactic is such a bummer, y'know.

Debutante Balls sounds like a blast too.

The Fraters have taken the keys to it. And a decision on a frequently asked question.

The most common question regarding the MOB is how one becomes a member. There are two avenues to gain entry:

1. Attend an official MOB event. So far there have been three such affairs (yes, I'm counting the State Fair beer garden gathering) and more will be planed in the future. If you have show up at one of these events, membership status is automatically conferred.

2. Petition one of the Northern Alliance blogs to grant you membership. Our own Saint Paul is credited with coming up with the original concept of the MOB. It has since been picked up and promoted by the Northern Alliance of Blogs. Thus, the various Northern Alliance blogs have become the custodians of the MOB (Mitch usually ends up mopping up). Drop any of the Northern Alliance members a note expressing your interest in joining the MOB. After a thorough vetting process, involving criminal background checks, retinal scans, and psychological screening, they will either confirm or deny your request.

Given that some of us live even further away from Keegans than the Scholars, I suggest the petition route for you. I lend you a sympathetic ear. I will install the code after I get the Elder to upgrade Market Power to MOB status.

In economic policy circles there is an old paper by Alberto Alesina and Allan Drazen (Brad DeLong has stored a copy) that explains why countries might continue to follow infeasible or inefficient policies for quite some time. When there is a large cost to be paid for a stabilization (in their case, stabilizing a macroeconomy that has runaway government debt or high inflation) that affects different groups differently, the political parties that represent them will struggle over who has to pay the costs. There results a war of attrition between the parties, solved only when there is a political consolidation -- one party becomes a majority that can enforce the stabilization on the minority party -- or until the date of the crisis draws closer. Alesina and Drazen develop a model of a "concession function", a point in time at which the minority party gives up the war and agrees to the majority's decision of how to pay for the costs. They offer three insights into the history of stabilizations:

1. There is usually agreement on what has to be done, but a political stalement over who pays for stabilization.
2. Stabilization usually occurs after a political consolidation, since the burden of stabilization is often quite unequal. Consolidation means that a majority has gained power enough to put the costs of stabilization onto the minority.
3. Successful stabilization plans are seldom the first one adopted. Failures usually occur before success.

Watching Senators Lindsay Graham and Chuck Schumer last night on Neil Cavuto's show convinced me that this model quite easily extends to Social Security. Both sides agree that there is a date, somewhere in the future, at which Social Security needs to be fixed. Schumer said, for all intents and purposes, that 2042 is too far away to worry about. Of course it will be harder to solve this later, because it will be more costly later. That does not matter to Schumer, because he figures to wait for a later date when Democrats might control Congress and the executive. Should that happen, the Democrats would want to force a solution then, imposing the costs (that trillion dollars or so that are called "transition costs" currently, and really what the fight is all about) onto a Republican minority.

Let me repeat that to be clear: The fight is over these "transition costs". If there was a way to have private accounts and no transition costs, I doubt this is much of a fight. You don't fight to the last foxhole over keeping the Social Security trust in the government's hands and away from households; Democrats in the early 1980s were all too happy to hand over tax cuts to kick off the Reagan Revolution. Giving personal accounts to millions of American families is a political winner. Democrats indeed say now they would be happy to take personal accounts as a supplement to Social Security, just not as a replacement of the current system. Why? The problem is on whom the taxes to pay the transition costs will fall. Raising the retirement age puts the cost on those in their 40s and maybe their 50s. Raising the cap on wages subject to Social Security taxes puts the cost on the upper middle class (not necessarily the same groups.) Reducing benefits puts the cost on current retirees -- something AARP is already lobbying to prevent.

So we have agreement broadly that something has to be done. We have a political consolidation in an expanding Republican majority in the House and a second-term presidency. And we've certainly had no shortage of failed attempts to save Social Security.

If Bush is to succeed -- and I've been more optimistic than most of my friends and colleagues on this -- the Alesina-Drazen approach suggests three things. First, any program has to be credible. The reason Bush is delaying, I would hope, is to be sure the plan passes not only a test of technical efficiency (that it actually solves the problem) but that it is salable to the public at large. So far, he hasn't done that, but there's yet time. Second, Bush needs to be seen as being fully committed to getting this passed, to use the political capital he said he had won in the election. On this Bush has a record of success in passing his legislation to fall back on. Last, he should be persistent. If the current Congress does not pass his plan, he will have an opportunity in 2007 to work with a new Congress, and while current betting is that the Republican majority will not expand then, it's simply too early to say. Plans that are unsuccessfully advanced at one time can pass later on.

As long-time readers will know, part of my consulting life is to work with central banks. It's pretty arcane stuff and seldom a source of humor. But this is just too delicious not to share.

National Bank of Uzbekistan accepts no deposits from individuals any more. The statement its press service released by way of explanation indicates that the Bank has accumulated colossal savings already and does not have the time to handle them all.

"We already have too much of your money, please do not give us any more." That might be a first.

BTW, fellow monetary economists, I am aware that it's unusual for central banks to take deposits from individuals. It's the explanation that tickled me.

H/T: