On December 25th and 26th, Amazon will be giving away free e-book copies of my Fundamentals of Environmental Economics. This is not your typical textbook. This book presents many new ideas and examples as it discusses articles from the NY Times and from the frontier of environmental and urban economics. After teaching my 116 student course at UCLA this fall, I completely rewrote the book. If you download it and read parts of it, please send me your thoughts. My only other present I can offer to all is a funny talk I gave on the Future of Chicago.
One homeless girl
My latest wonkblog column explores homelessness issues:
My first foray into social services was as a night volunteer in a homeless shelter. I particularly remember one bright and vivacious 12-year-old girl. The two of us sometimes talked during dinner. As we talked, her little brother would buzz around us, using language and gestures more suited to the Navy than to his preschool. Her parents were puzzlingly limited. I would sometimes help them with simple tasks such as assembling their children’s Christmas toys. They angered easily, with predictable results. In the middle of all this family chaos was this calm and resilient young girl. She made me a fantastic playful picture depicting a punked-out teenager with multiple piercings. I had no idea how to help her.
I thought about her as I read the initial installments of Andrea Elliott’s amazing, heartbreaking New York Times profile of another middle-schooler named Dasani, who lives in a homeless shelter called Auburn Family Residence, in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene section. Dasani shares a 520-square-foot room with her parents and her seven siblings. She’s one of 280 children in this huge and forbidding structure. I don’t know that we’re sure how to help her, either… (more here).
Space prevented me from exploring one other issue: the simple role of bad luck. Dasani’s story includes savage turns of fate that so easily might have turned out differently. I’m tempted to dismiss the importance of bad luck. Families living near the water line have a way of conspiring in their own misfortune. If Chanel wasn’t arrested on one day, she might easily have been arrested on another occasion—for example the day she shoplifted Dasani’s birthday cake.
But bad luck does actually matter. The worst twist of fate concerned Chanel’s mother, Dasani’s grandmother, Joanie. Stably employed as a municipal worker after her own struggles with addiction. Joanie provided one of the very few sources of personal and financial stability in Dasani’s life. When this indispensable woman died of leukemia at age 55, her family never really recovered. “Why did she have to go away so quickly?” Dasani asked. I found myself asking the same question.
“Jokes and fairytales”
The Newark Star-Ledger wants to know howsa bout the Ft. Lee affair. I agree that Baroni ought to testify under oath. But why not Christie? “Never talk to the monkey if the organ-grinder is available.”
Oh, grow up!
Given all the real scandals in the world - especially scandals about the unspeakable conduct of Republicans, and especially about their use of inflammatory language about the President - there’s simply no excuse for making up stuff to be upset about.
For instance:
Terry McAuliffe invested in a scheme that made money stealing the identities of dying people and cheating insurance companies. (Yes, this is the business where the AP falsely accused McAuliffe of having lied to a federal official; once that lie got cleared away no one paid much attention to the underlying scandal. And of course McAuliffe had no idea what use was being made of his money. He just always just happens to be in the way when something sleazy is going down.)
So Pat Mullins, the Chairman of the Virginia Republican Party, addressing his demoralized troops, wanted to cheer them up by saying something nasty about Democrats. (Surprise!) He referred to the political difficulties the President is experiencing, and added:
Obama is so close to death that Terry McAuliffe is about to buy a life insurance policy on him.
And now a bunch of Democrats are complaining about “offensive, violent rhetoric against President Obama” and screaming for Mullins’s scalp.
Srsly? It’s clear that “close to death” refers to the President’s political standing, not his health. “Violent”? Not hardly. And the attack is directed at McAuliffe. Actually, though I hate to say it about anything said by a Republican, it’s pretty damned funny.
Remember The Boy Who Cried Wolf? The more Democrats try to spin scandals out of nothing, the harder it is to make the real scandals stick.
In which I examine the unity of mind and body
Over on the Nonprofiteer I consider the expression “pain in the ass” and its application to actual asses everywhere. The money graf:
So when you go home for the holidays and abruptly find yourself troubled by an injury you’d
thought long healed, look around the room: maybe it’s Mama and maybe it’s Uncle Jim, but I’ll
bet somebody familial is the cause. And if you notice a brother who seems to manifest a limp
every time he sees you, consider this: you might be the pain in the ass of which you’ve always
heard.
Mark Knopfler and Eric Clapton celebrating Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday
Lefty celebrity culture got some things right, and had fun along the way. (h/t Erik Eckholm)
Explanations for behavior
What counts as an answer to the question “Why did Person A do Action X?” Below is a first cut at a list of possible answers to that question. The fact that it has only thirteen elements would make it interesting if it were comprehensive. I’m quite deliberately eliding the behavior/action distinction here, looking for a list that will include intentional, unintentional, and truly involutary behaviors.
1. Reflex (jumping at a loud noise).
2. Compulsive behavior (tics, stammers, etc.)
3. Need (air, water, food, etc.), including acquired needs such as addictions. Defined by unpleasant sensation of lack, relieved by doing X.
4. Habit.
5. Custom (others do X).
6. Pleasure (X is enjoyable).
7. Advantage (perceived gain accruing from doing X: material or ideal, including status or relational gain, for self or other).
8. Fear (of the consequences - again for selff or another - of not doing X, including status or relational loss).
9. Duty (as distinct from positive or negative social consequences of doing or not doing X).
10. Role aspiration (wanting to be the sort of person who does X, again as distinct from the social consequences).
11. Novelty.
12. Inadvertence (e.g., stumbling over something, or being pushed).
13. Misperception.
What did I leave out? And who has done this analysis already?
Free Access to the New Yorker Profile of Mark Kleiman’s Research
Patrick Keefe’s profile of Mark and his research is now available for free at this link. This piece weaves a sketch of Mark’s background while also discussing his current research and its relevance to this important policy debate. With my ego, I thought about how a similar article could be written about me but I quickly realized that it couldn’t be published.
The New Yorker Magazine Goes to Washington
I’m not used to seeing my UCLA colleagues profiled in the New Yorker. Congratulations Mark!
Stockholm Prizes in criminology to Petersilia and Nagin
Hearty congratulations to Joan Petersilia and Daniel Nagin on winning the 2014 Stockholm Prize in Criminology. It would have been hard to find two more deserving winners.