K Marx The Spot

When Researchers Go Bad

How do you know when researchers have too much time on their hands? How about when they are implementing a real-world version of a quarter-century old video game?

Labels: Pac-Man, Roombas, stupid funding tricks, Stupid research tricks

Thanks for Not All That Much

Dear Newsweek:

I was pleased that you asked Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu about the Iranian nuclear threat in your interview with him. But did you ask him about Israel's own nuclear arsenal? Surely one has a better appreciation of Iranian motives if one considers what Iranians consider to be Iran's external threats.

Labels: Iran, Israel, nuclear proliferation, Stupid reporting tricks, the nuclear arsenal that dares not have its name be spoken

Passing for Wisdom

Now thank God for the media
for saving the day
putting it all into perspective
in a responsible way.
(The Offspring, Stuff is Messed Up)

One always hopes that someone given a weekly column in a respected news magazine would be wise, or at least would aspire to wisdom. Alas, many of those who actually have such columns are more than happy to play stupid semantic games with their readers. Jon Meacham of Newsweek has shown that he is no exception. A recent column on bipartisanship actually starts off well.

That is why the sooner the political conversation takes into account the fact that there has never—never—been a golden age of bipartisanship, the better. There have been, it is true, eras in which there was more rather than less cooperation across party lines, but rival forces have always tried to destabilize one another.

One could argue that The Era of Good Feelings from 1817 to 1825, when there was only one viable national political party, was an exception, but even then there were important regional issues (four men fought fairly hard for the Democratic-Republican nomination in 1820, for example) and the issue of slavery was the cause of a great deal of political infighting. But I digress.

Alas, Meacham forgets that partisanship need not be a bad thing. In real life, partisanship, yea, even vociferous partisanship, is the only sane course of action.

Words have consequences, too. I wish that more liberals had appreciated this point during the George W. Bush years. It was wrong then to demonize the president, and it is wrong now....

I would argue that the 1980s were manageably mad in political terms. Liberals went crazy decrying Ronald Reagan, who was said to be a nuclear cowboy who hated the poor. Enough Americans, however, found Reagan to be a good man with whom they might disagree on particulars but whose essential character was worthy....

Reagan may or may not have been a "good man" but a huge number of his policies were borderline insane—his economic policies hobbled the federal government for a generation; his defense policies wasted hundreds of billions of dollars for absolutely useless missile defense systems; and his international policies included incredibly stupid and blatant violations of international law.

As for the first excerpt, when your administration treats prisoners in the way that the human monsters who ran the Inquisition in centuries past or the Soviet gulags in the last century would have treated them, then you certainly deserve the moniker demon. That the Bush administration is not seen by people like Meacham as morally repugnant says a lot about what opinion-makers in America are willing to overlook for the sake of cultivating sources and pleasing the powerful. Demons come in more than one form.

Labels: bipartisanship, demonizing, Jon Meacham, stupid publishing tricks

Blame It On Rio

Catching up on recent copies of The New Yorker brought out this flabbergasting fact from Jon Lee Anderson's article on the gangs of Rio de Janeiro.

Rio's police... kill more people than police anywhere else in the world; in 2008, they acknowledged killing eleven hundred and eighty-eight people who were "resisting arrest," or slightly more than three people a day. By comparison, American police killed three hundred and seventy-one people—classified as "justifiable homicides"—in the entire United States in the same period.

The population of the United States in 2008 was about 304 million. The population of Rio de Janeiro is either about 6 million or a bit over 14 million, depending on whether you mean the municipality or the metropolitan area. So, the homicide rate for Rio's cops is at least 63 times as those of American cops, whose gentleness and passivity is so well-known throughout the world.

Labels: amazing statistics, cops, killer cops, Rio de Janeiro

Bedfellows

The surprise news that Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize resulted in at least one amusing juxtaposition.

Among the critics of the prize are both Obama's conservative critics ("[H]e's the first to win it without having accomplished anything" from National Review Online) and... the Taliban ("He has done nothing for peace in Afghanistan").

That's only amusing until you realize how much of the conservative movement in the United States would welcome theocracy.

Labels: Barack Obama, Nobel Prize, stupid conservtive tricks, Taliban

Market Watch

If you have a 401(k) plan at work, you cannot help but notice the incessant cheerleading for equity investment from your 401(k) provider.

But over the last 10 years, how good an investment have equities been? The answer is not that hot, even though the last two quarters have been quite good. As I have done before, you can see here the actual returns for five Vanguard mutual funds—their S&P 500 fund, their total stock market index fund, their total international stock index fund, their total bond market index fund, and their money market fund.

The graph shows that the bond market fund has done the best by far over the last 10 years, with the international fund just beating out the money market fund for second place (its last 12 months have only somewhat regained its dramatic losses over the previous 12 months, whereas the money market fund has paid very low dividends recently). But, still, if you parked $10,000 of retirement money in the money market fund 10 years ago, you would have $13,652 now. If you had invested that in the S&P 500 fund, you would have lost money, not just before inflation, but overall, with a position of $9,776.

Labels: investment advice, investment returns, money market funds, stock market, stupid financial tricks

Another Reason Labor Unions Matter

At least in Boston, labor unions do what the Democratic leadership can't—they can shun so-called Democrats who like to kiss the moneyed butts of insurance companies.

Stephen Lynch, who won the special election to fill Joe Moakley's seat some years ago and has faced only token opposition since, had taken out nomination papers to run for Ted Kennedy's seat. But now it seems that he won't run after all. And it's not surprising why.

Whoever wins the Democratic primary will likely face only token opposition—the only candidates on the Republican side are a suburban selectman and a two-term state senator. But there are several well-known candidates among the Democrats. And when most of them showed up at the annual Labor Day breakfast, most of them got to speak, except for Lynch, who has continued his conservative bent in Congress by opposing attempts to reform health care.

A candidate who can't get any respect from labor unions won't win the Democratic primary in Massachusetts. Hint to progressives: you can run against Lynch in 2010 and get union backing.

Labels: Senate election, Stephen Lynch, stupid conservative Democrat tricks

Petty Bourgeoise

Just how petty can a condominium board be? Let's find out.

For children at the Room to Grow preschool in Tewksbury,... [t]heir playground is gone.

After a yearlong battle between the school’s owner, Wendy Bowen, her landlord, and the board of managers that governs her building, the slides, swings, and climbing structures were taken down on Aug. 28.

"We've been in this location for 20 years, and the playground has been here for 17," said Bowen. "But last August, they raised issues about it."

"They didn't show proper process for protection of the children," said Mike Naddif, who owns a unit in the building and sits on the board.
"What if something happened to a kid? All the unit owners would be liable."

In response to safety concerns, Bowen said, she increased her insurance to release other tenants of liability. Her landlord, meanwhile, worked with the Tewksbury Planning Board to track down original permits for the playground. Bowen said the landlord was able to find the permit from the initial building plans, but final permits after completion were not on file.

Then the board directed Bowen to dismantle the playground by January because it sat on common space that is part of the overall complex and does not belong to any one unit in the building.

In a residential condominium, it's reasonable for owners to make sure that others are not using the common spaces for themselves; people use their backyards, for example, for all sorts of things.

But have you ever seen a commercial condominium's open space? It's generally nicely landscaped, and quite pristine. And never used for anything. Rather than have open space used for the playground, just like it has for 17 years, some petty tyrants would rather it get sprayed with enough Roundup and fertilizer every two weeks so that it looks nice and green (and so that the Merrimack River gets enough chemical runoff).

But it gets better.

But the school was dealt a final blow when the board notified Bowen that she was going to be responsible for its legal fees as well as her own. Bowen said the additional financial burden was the last straw.

"To challenge the trustees' right to assess fees would have required costly litigation," said Mark Rosen of Goodman, Shapiro, & Lombardi, the attorney representing Room to Grow and the school's landlord. Bowen was advised to sign off on the elimination of the playground.

In response to questions as to why the playground became an issue now, after so many years, the board's attorney said timing is irrelevant.

"The central issue is not how long it's been here, but whether it has ever been a lawfully permitted use of the site," said Richard O'Neil of O'Neil & Associates.

"The bottom line is that there was never any such approval by the Planning Board."

This really is a fascinating story. A business owner and her landlord are on the same side of an issue—that it seems obvious enough that the town had approved of the playground and that the playground was doing no one any harm. They made sure that reasonable questions about liability insurance were covered. And it's not like her neighboring businesses mind having the youngsters around.

For Jack McKenzie, a unit owner whose accounting firm, McKenzie & Frawley, is just a few doors down from the school, that reasoning was not satisfactory.

"This whole situation has been unjustified. That playground has been here for over 15 years and it's never been a problem," he said.

"It's always been a pleasure to see the kids out there."

The problem, of course, is that some people let their anal sphincters define their entire personalities. In a perfect world, Mike Naddif would find that his more humane clients were taking their sales and marketing business elsewhere on the grounds that his marketing skills are clearly deficient. In our actual world, we can only hope that Wendy Bowen finds a better location for her school and that her landlord campaigns to kick the current condo board out on their respective backsides.

Labels: marketing professionals from Hell, Mike Naddif, Petty Bourgeosie, Room to Grow preschool, Stupid condominium tricks, Tewksbury

Just Stop It!

Every year, athletic teams at high schools and colleges are reminded in stark terms, that hazing of new players is intolerable.

And every year around this time, when baseball teams make their last road trip of the year, we see stories like this one of the Boston Red Sox dressing rookie players up. Almost always, at least someone is dressed up as a girl. (It's so funny: the rookies are sissies!)

it is well documented that hazing has led to serious injuries, emotional traumas, and even deaths. Why, then, do professional baseball teams do it every year? And why do the media always cover and encourage it?

(I should point out that the Yankees once did this initiation thing in a respectful yet funny manner. In 2006, the veterans made the rookies travel in George Steinbrenner costumes—blazers, turtlenecks, gray wigs, and aviator sunglasses. No bras. No go-go boots. Nothing sexually bizarre. And yet everyone had a good time in spite of all that.

Labels: hazing, sexual insecurity, stupid baseball tricks

Recipe for Disaster

A cookie recipe that calls for four ingredients and only a bit of sugar? Sounds intriguing. Until you get to the end of the accompanying article.

I made seven batches and only two came out right. A couple of batches were as flat as sugar cookies, others looked good on the outside but weren't airy on the inside, and still another tasted right but were too smooth on top, lacking the distinctive craggy texture. Food editor Sheryl Julian and another tester tried it eight times, adjusting the flour and the oven temperature, and every one of them flopped.

Two people who cook for a living tried this recipe 15 times with 13 failures? And it's still running in the paper? Someone at the Boston Globe has a sick sense of humor.

Labels: Nothings, recipes, Stupid reporting tricks

Why Newsweek is Teh Suck

My Newsweek subscription lasts through 2010 and I know for sure that I'm not renewing it. (It was a gift from my late father-in-law.)

There are lots of bad magazines out there, but why is Newsweek egregious in its own, Washington Post-owned way?

Take the 8 June 2009 issue. Among the features are two worthy articles on the Guantanamo Bay detention camps: one on the difficulty of reforming jihadists and one on the thorny problem of how to repatriate detainees. Both of these problems are real problems that our government faces now, and both are problems that our previous government ought to have foreseen.

Do either of these articles even get mentioned on the cover? No, the cover has Oprah Winfrey on it and the featured story is how many of Oprah's medical guests are pretty much frauds.

Um, we knew that. Oprah made Doctor Phil famous. (To be fair, Oprah also allowed Sesame Street to introduce Doctor Feel, who is only slightly more of a buffoon.)

Labels: Guantanamo Bay, Newsweek, Oprah Winfrey, Stupid reporting tricks

One Small Step for an Elector, One Giant Leap for the Electorate

Well, what do you know?

Joe Kennedy decided today that he would not run to fill the Senate seat vacated by his uncle, Ted Kennedy.

I should note that Joe Kennedy held a House seat for six terms, from 1987 to 1999, but his tenure in the House was not a particularly stellar one. Were his last name not Kennedy, it would be difficult to say that he was better qualified than any of the current Massachusetts House delegation. And perhaps his not entering the race will make the media pay attention to the actual policies that the actual candidates—none named Kennedy— might actually propound.

Labels: Joe Kennedy, Massachusetts politics, Senate, Ted Kennedy

Turn Off Your Non-Electronic Devices

Ever wonder why the print media seems moribund? Maybe it's not the media. Maybe it's the editing! Our latest case in point: Business Week, which is supposedly up for sale, may be showing why no sale has yet occurred. A recent issue talked about small airports so ineptly that it was noteworthy, even for the magazine that features the columnar stylings of Jack and Suzy Welch.

In the past 18 months alone, airports in nearly 100 cities, including Springfield, Mass., saw their last remaining carrier pull out (though some, including White Sulphur Springs, have regained limited service).

When I read that, I thought it peculiar. The main airport that serves Springfield, Massachusetts is Bradley International, about 20 miles away by car in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. (Bradley is about equidistant from Springfield and Hartford and this serves two smaller markets fairly well, or at least well enough to still have some international flights.)

Springfield itself does not have an airport and has not had one in recent memory. But, aha! The old Westover air base, 8 miles from Springfield, was in fact used sporadically for 2 decades until 2008 as a commercial airport. Its last tenant was Skybus, the low-cost carrier that specialized in not just third-rate airport locations but also a bizarre pay scheme that paid flight attendants $9 per hour plus 10% commission on their in-flight sales.

But not even Skybus referred to Westover as "Springfield"; instead, it was "Hartford (Chicopee)."

Labels: Business Week, stupid airline tricks, Stupid reporting tricks

Blogs I Wished I'd Started: 1

It's "simple" and yet "effective": the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks.

Lots of grammatical solecisms are not that hard to understand. Using "it's" instead of "its" is lazy, but the apostrophe has two different functions in English and getting them confused is not hard. Comma splices are often the result of not knowing when to use a semicolon, but English also allows a nominative absolute that looks very much like a comma splice. But why quotation marks are supposed to substitute for emphasis is hard to fathom.

Labels: Blogs I wished I'd Started, grammar

Sign of the Times

Just how bad is the used book business these days? A recent ad in The New Yorker leads one to booksbythefoot.com, which sells what you think they sell.

While one can buy books in bulk from this outfit by subject, what they tout on their home page is mostly books of appropriate colors. Books have become just so much wallpaper.

Labels: books, new horizons in advertising, used books

Great Moments in Theology

It's no surprise that Senator Ted Kennedy is not a well man; he was diagnosed with brain cancer in May of 2008. And perhaps it is news when he has the president convey a letter to Pope Benedict.

But when the contents of the letter are kept private, which is sillier: publishing almost 1000 words in a newspaper of record about a letter whose contents are unknown, or being a purportedly smart academic and, well, pontificating in public about that letter?

I'm going with the latter. Remember, the letter might have, essentially, told Pope Benedict that his acts to coddle Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites were an embarrassment to Catholics everywhere.

"I find it quite moving," said the Rev. Robert P. Imbelli, a Catholic theologian at Boston College. "Clearly, when one Catholic asks another to pray for him, this is a sign both of vulnerability and of trust. To have the opportunity to ask that of the pope is, in addition, a sign of devotion and respect for the one Catholics hold to be the successor of St. Peter with a special role in maintaining the unity and apostolic tradition of the church."

Labels: fact-free journalism, Pope Benedict, Stupid reporting tricks, Ted Kennedy

Bizarre Moments in Branding

I understand that if you have dreams of a small chain of maternity stores where motherhood is considered a blessing, not a burden, then it makes sense in a lot of dimensions to have a name positively associated with motherhood. It is even better to have a name that has been associated with motherhood for several millennia.

But I wonder if it makes much sense at all to pick as the name the Egyptian goddess Isis, well-known for becoming wife of her brother Osiris.

(Somehow, I don't think that Hera Maternity would be quite as popular, perhaps because more people know she was Zeus's sister, or simply perhaps she had quite the temper if you believe that sort of thing.)

Labels: Mythology, stupid corporate tricks