I have come across a discussion of why American blacks and whites of the same income levels do not succeed (go to college, get good grades, get good jobs, etc.) at the same rates.

Apparently a Yale sociologist has written a book in which he shows a correlation between parental wealth (i.e., household net worth) and achievement that does not seem to be affected by skin color.

Well, obviously. But I think that this analysis mistakes “wealth” for “class”, something that happens a lot in the United States. Your social class in America is determined almost entirely by your wealth, but it’s really much more subtle.

MTV Cribs is quite valuable for observing this. Cribs is a kind of MTV Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous where every week viewers are treated to tours of houses of movie stars, celebrity musicians, athletes, etc. Everyone on the show has a high income, and most of them have had that high income for long enough to accumulate a good deal of wealth. But the choices most of these people make as to how to spend their money — bling-bling lifestyle accessories, Rolls-Royces with gold wheels, gold-plated tableware, gold bathroom fixtures, swimming pools with giant lucite dollar signs in the middle (really), incredibly ugly ‘antiques’ covered with gold leaf, etc. — expose them as low-class, whatever their wealth. If you’ve never seen MTV Cribs, Graceland and, in fact, Elvis in general also illustrate the phenomenon. (Curiously, professional athletes seem to do much better, class-wise, than hip-hop stars, at least to judge from their houses.)

There are suggestions in the Yalie’s book (see his synopsis at the bottom of this page) for class-based affirmative-action policies, policies that would encourage “minority propety accumulation”.

The question is: does accumulation of property tend to raise one’s social class, or does one’s internalization of higher-class values result in behavior that results in the accumulation of property? My strong suspicion is that it’s the latter. What the lower class needs, if it’s to succeed, is some way of learning and assimilating, on a large scale, the values of the middle class.

This is a tricky proposition, to say the least. In the U.S., efforts to get poor people to adopt middle-class habits and values would almost certainly be denounced as racism, and an attempt to “destroy” minority communities. Most of the highly-visible poverty in this country is among African-Americans, and there is a certain type of very noisy activist who is ready to denounce any exhibition of middle-class values among a resident of the ghetto as Uncle-Tomism. If you follow the logic, it appears that the denouncers regard the authentic African-American lifestyle to be one of multigenerational poverty, ignorance, and petty crime — not what I think they intend to say.

In any case, this kind of thing tends to meet with resistance even without the racial bugaboo that stalks nearly everything in American society. In 1937, George Orwell, in The Road to Wigan Pier, wrote:

In some districts efforts are not being made to teach the unemployed more about food-values and more about the intelligent spending of money. When you hear of a thing like this you feel yourself torn both ways. I have heard a Communist speaker on the platform grow very angry about it. In London, he said, parties of society dames now have the cheek to walk into East End houses and give shopping-lessons to the wives of the unemployed. He gave this as an instance of the mentality of the English governing class. First you condemn a family to live on thirty shillings a week, and then you have the damned impertinence to tell them how they are to spend their money. He was quite right — I agree heartily. Yet all the same, it is a pity that, merely for the lack of a proper tradition, people should pour muck like tinned milk down their throats and not even know that it is inferior to the product of the cow.

We must learn to either hold our noses and live in a society where the poor are given shopping-lessons, though, or accept that the mass of them are going to continue drinking tinned milk.

Apropos of a couple of things I’ve written recently:

Miramax secured an unspecified annual cash consideration when it struck the corporate agreement with the Denver brewery early last year. And the pact grants Coors the right to nix Miramax’s showing rival beer brands in its movies.

So, in keeping with the spirit of the agreement, Miramax decided to digitally alter ["A View From the Top" - (trailer)] which had already begun shooting when the pact was struck.

From Variety via CNN.

I’ve had this Washington Post article hanging around for a while now, and I’m not sure what to do with it. (Look here for the article if the good people at the Post have taken it down.)

It’s headlined Teaching Timidity To Kids, and it’s about just that.

Lisa and Danny Stone live in the Charles County house where Danny grew up. They know all the other residents on the cul-de-sac. When 7-year-old Danielle wanted to sell cookie dough for her school door-to-door, Lisa Stone asked each neighbor to call her as Danielle left for the next house.

“Where I live, there’s no reason for that,” she admits. “If I went out on the front porch I could see her. But it made me feel safe. I needed to know she was someplace.”

The article, from early December, examines the trend of bubble-wrapped kids, and speculates on the origins and consequences of the practice. It suggests anxiety about terrorism as an explanation for why being a mama’s boy is the default state for kids these days, but I don’t think that has much to do with it.

The threat from terrorism, as diffuse as it is, is at least a real threat. The overparenting trend seems more rooted in free-floating anxiety over things like Internet predators, school bus accidents, high-fat diets, electrical-transmission-line “radiation”, the “bad influence” of television (naughty words on MTV have long been bleeped, but now they blur the speaker’s mouth, to avoid contaminating the minds of lip-readers), etc., etc. ad infinitum. Parents seem almost exclusively worried about things that are not actually risks.

My take is that this is just another consequence of the continuing disappearance of social roles in our society.

There’s good and bad to this role-less society, as there is to most other things. The good we think we understand: women are not limited to working as secretaries, teachers, or housewives; middle-aged people are not limited by social expectations to playing golf and bridge; black people are not limited to working as shoeshine boys or elevator operators.

Forty or fifty years ago, what you were supposed to do in a given situation was pretty clear. A man held doors open for a woman, and gave up his seat on the bus if necessary. Middle-class women cooked and cleaned, and didn’t worry about that rattle in the car; that was the man’s job.

This was, as the baby-boom generation pointed out, more than a little limiting. Failure to conform carried a great price, one that few people were willing to pay. As the baby boomers have come to define American culture, those old limiting roles have largely disappeared.

Unfortunately, the baby boomers failed to appreciate that there’s also something very liberating about inhabiting a clearly-defined role. The chief advantage is that, in knowing what’s expected of you, you know when you’ve done enough and can go to bed.

There is no accepted role for what a parent does these days. Fifty years ago, it was clear enough: feed, clothe, and house your kids; see to it that they go to school; make sure that that they know enough to stay out of serious trouble and to avoid serious accidents; support them, within reason, in things they want to do, and help them out when they have a problem they can’t solve themselves. If you did those things, you were a good parent.

Note that being a good parent fifty years ago has nothing to do with making sure your children are never injured, or disappointed, or sad or lonely or bored. The parent’s responsibility, broadly speaking, was to make sure the child didn’t get killed. Everything up to that point was largely the child’s own problem.

Did the children of fifty years ago — incidentally, those would be the very baby boomers who have thrown out all the roles — make mistakes? Did they ever get hurt? Of course they did. Undoubtedly some of them were even locked in trunks and left for dead, something that couldn’t happen today.

In making these mistakes, though, these kids learned things about the world, and about themselves. That is, after all, the primary purpose of childhood in our culture: to learn how to be an independent person, and to prepare you for participation in society. Today’s kids — most of them, anyway — don’t have that opportunity.

This actually has some scary implications for the future of our country. We seem to be raising a generation of people — a very large generation, at that, the largest in American history — who will, if they take their childhood lessons to heart, see danger everywhere and who will have an almost instinctual reverence for authority. These are not what you’d call characteristically American characteristics. Character matters, as the political opponents of Bill Clinton lately liked to remind us, but instead of raising kids with character, we’re raising kids who are characters, and pretty flat ones at that.

I recently watched Demolition Man on TV. Demolition Man was made in 1993 and set in something like 2032, with Sylvester Stallone playing John Savage, an unfrozen cop from the past (i.e. our present) chasing Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes), an unfrozen bad guy ditto. The basic plot is that, in 1996, Savage captures super-bad-guy Phoenix, but he is believed to have caused the deaths of some 30 hostages in the process. Phoenix is frozen in the L.A. County cryojail (remember, the opening scenes of this 1993 movie are set in the exotic and high-tech world of three years into the future), and, because of the hostage thing, Savage is frozen, too. Oops.

Flash forward to 2032, when Phoenix escapes from prison while he’s temporarily unfrozen for a parole hearing. The future police are helpless, all violence (not to mention foul language, salt, meat, tobacco, etc.) having been banished from society by a “benevolent” dictator who Phoenix characterizes as an “Evil Mr. Rogers”. Sandra Bullock plays Lenina Huxley (!), the only female police officer of the future, who suggests unfreezing Savage, the legendary cop from the 20th century. This is done, and the chase is on — but the by-the-book future chief of police doesn’t like Savage’s maverick ways.

I assure you that, despite that dog’s breakfast of clichés masquerading as a plot, this is actually a movie worth watching. To begin with, the future female police uniform consists of a catsuit, boots, and a short leather jacket. And, as I’ve already pointed out, Sandra Bullock is the only future female police officer.

And, as if that isn’t enough, this is an pretty well-written movie. The future dystopia is consciously a very goofy one; it’s rare to see a movie that can laugh at itself without being wall-to-wall farce.

Screenwriters don’t get a lot of respect, generally. You never see a writer’s name on the marquee at the cinema, but if a movie is good, it comes from a good screenplay. A lot can be done to screw up a good screenplay, but very little can be done to salvage a movie based on a bad one. The usual Hollywood approach to a bad screenplay is to have about seventy rounds of re-writes, and then to throw a lot of special effects and marketing at the thing.

Demolition Man’s screenplay was rewritten by one Daniel Waters, who was responsible for both Heathers and Happy Campers (among others), movies that did not take themselves too seriously. The main arc of Demolition Man is standard action-movie stuff, but there’s a lot of cleverness woven in that shows Mr. Waters’ hand.

Another distinguishing feature of Demolition Man is that it was one of the first feature films to incorporate significant product placement. GM coughed up to have John Savage drive around in an antique 1970 Oldsmobile 442, and a number of GM concept cars make appearances on the streets.

The best product placement in the movie, though — possibly the best in any movie to date — involves Taco Bell. After apparently saving the life of the evil Mr. Rogers, Savage and Huxley are invited by Evil Mr. Rogers to a gala night of dinner and dancing at Taco Bell. Fish-out-of-water Savage quite understandably considers the choice of venue a bit odd, and says as much.

Lenina responds, “[...] You do not realize that Taco Bell was the only restaurant to survive the franchise wars.” (As in so many visions of the future, contractions have been eliminated from the English language.)

Savage: “So?”

Lenina: “So now all restaurants are Taco Bells.”

It’s brilliant, and all the more so because Taco Bell had the courage to laugh at itself. Remember, this is a dystopian future; the fact that all restaurants are Taco Bells is part of the horror. Taco Bell not only allowed their image to be used this potentially risky way, but, if my memory is correct, they engaged in some serious cross-promotion with the film, using a clip from the movie in their TV ads. It’s a product placement that actually adds something to the movie, too, rather than just standing there as a monument to the producer’s greed. (more…)

I’ve written before about how governmental policy contributes to homelessness. An article in City Journal points out something that’s going to result in more homelessness in the future:

During the 1980s, when middle-income condo developments sprang up across the Sunbelt, some were jerry-built, and owners and condo associations—properly—sued the contractors. Trial lawyers quickly discovered that suits against multi-unit complexes could be gold mines, since there were so many potential litigants in each case. By the mid-nineties, trial lawyers were actively soliciting condo associations across the country, offering to represent them in suits against builders on flimsy, or even nonexistent, evidence of faulty construction. Judges again made things worse, inventing a notion called “stacked liability,” which meant that not merely the builder’s current insurer but every company that had ever insured him was liable for claims concerning the project.

As a result

Predictably, insurers are fleeing the market or are ratcheting up their rates so high that builders can no longer afford to construct multi-unit housing. For example, one of California’s biggest builders, Barnett America, no longer builds the affordable, multi-unit housing that it specialized in for 20 years. Now it erects pricey single-family homes instead.

The article is about toxic torts in general, not the housing industry, but it’s all interesting.

The North Dakota legislature recently voted down a proposal to impose total tobacco prohibition in the state. Under the defeated bill’s provisions, sales of tobacco would have been punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine; use of tobacco by 30 days in jail and $1,000.

Most anti-tobacco legislation is aimed at making tobacco more expensive through punitive taxation, or more difficult by restricting where it can be sold, or more inconvenient by restricting where it can be used. This bill, though, would have put you at risk of jail if you lit up your pipe in your house in the middle of your 5,000 acre ranch (of which there are more than a few in North Dakota). “Medical costs” and “lost productivity” were, of course, the justification:

Before the bill went to a vote on the floor, [Grand Forks Republican Rep. Mike] Grosz told his fellow representatives that tobacco costs the state close to 1,000 lives every year and $351 million in medical and productivity costs.

According to the CDC (warning: PDF), in 1995, about 3,900 people died in North Dakota.

My guess is that Rep. Grosz’s “close to 1,000″ deaths actually means “930 deaths”, taken by multiplying the number of annual deaths by 24%, the CDC’s figure for what portion of the North Dakota population smokes. If you exclude accidents, HIV, homicide, etc., 24% of the annual deaths is 864, which is still closer to 1000 than to zero.

The fact that more than 864 — or 930 — people die a year in North Dakota seems to indicate that not smoking is not a recipe for immortality, though. My guess — and remember, I’m not a physician or even a North Dakota state representative — my guess is that those people would still die, even under the benevolent hand of Rep. Grosz. But never mind.

The interesting thing are the circumstances of the bill’s failure:

[Rep. Wes] Belter [R-Leonard, chairman of the Finance and Taxation Committee] told the House that committee members were frustrated last week with the testimony from anti-tobacco groups that testified against the tobacco ban, including the North Dakota Medical Association, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, North Dakota Public Health Association and North Dakota Nurses Association.

What?! That’s like the WCTU endorsing Johnnie Walker. These groups are always in favor of raising taxes on tobacco and of banning smoking in public places. But here we have the American Lung Association lobbying against a bill to ban the use of tobacco? Why?

There’s no evidence banning tobacco would prevent and reduce tobacco use because no such approach has been implemented, the groups argued.

Ahhhh. Now we see. These groups are skeptical that banning tobacco would reduce its use. Some of these same groups are vocally opposed to lifting the ban on things like marijuana, on the basis that such action would increase use of those drugs. Apparently there’s no reason to believe that the same thing would work in reverse, though, and nobody, especially anti-tobacco groups, would want the government to take action based on incomplete or faulty information. But there’s more:

The ban also could take away certain funding for these groups for tobacco control programs.

Ah. Well. So the position of the American Lung Association et al. is roughly this: we should not ban tobacco because that would reduce funding for tobacco control programs. It seems to me, though, that banning the sale and use of tobacco is a tobacco-control program. It’s just not a tobacco-control program that involves various “public health” groups receiving funding from the government.

It would be worth remembering this the next time you see any of these groups arguing for higher taxes on tobacco in order to “discourage” tobacco use and produce positive “health” results.

If this is actually true, Bloomberg has indeed gone off the deep end. According to Matt Drudge, New York mayor Mike Bloomberg was watching the live HBO broadcast of a Rolling Stones concert at Madison Square Garden, when he saw — horrors! — members of the band smoking on stage. First Altamont, now this! What, indeed, is rock and roll coming to?

The Mayor sent police to the Garden to issue summonses to Keith Richards and Ron Wood; but apparently the cops elected to watch the show before issuing their citations — a decision that probably avoided a riot, actually — and since the band left in a hurry after the show, no summonses were actually issued.

Bloomberg seems to believe that New York is immune to market forces, forces he should be familiar with from his previous career. Not satisfied with what he’s done to boost the bar and restaurant business in Hoboken, he’s now determined to see to it that the Rolling Stones don’t play in the city any more.

New York has a lot going for it, but the very reason that people are willing to pay the high cost, both financial and personal, of living in the city is that it allows for more possibilities than most other places. The city is a product, like any other: it offers a certain value at a certain price. Raising the price — the commercial property tax was recently hiked 18% — while lowering the value offered shows either an incredible faith in the attractive power of New York City, or, as I think more likely, an incredible amount or hubris and contempt for the realities of commerce. People and companies have fled the city before, most famously in the 1970s. I do not understand what makes Bloomberg think that it will not happen again if the place is made sufficiently inhospitable.

I’m watching George Bush on TV, giving a speech. He says: “In my judgement, in my considered judgement, there is a real risk to our friends and allies in Iraq.”

Clapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclap.

What the hell are these people applauding? They’re an invited audience, so we can be certain they’re not from the Workers World Party and happy that there’s a risk to the friends and allies of the hegemon USA. I have to wonder whether they’re actually listening to what the guy is saying.

Jacques Chirac is quoted by CNN today as saying “As far as we’re concerned, war always means failure,” which is an interesting point of view.

Certainly, when international relations becomes a matter of people from one country shooting guns at people from another country, something has gone wrong. You might say that was means a failure of diplomacy, but saying that “war always means failure” is just fatuous.

Chirac was mis-translated, though. What he actually said was “La guerre est toujours un constat d’échec”, which means, literally, that war is always an establishment or acknowledgement of failure.

So Chirac said not “war always means failure”, but “war always means an admission of failure.” This is a much less idiotic statement than the CNN translation because, yes, going to war is an admission that what you’ve done to avoid war has failed.

An article in Sunday’s New York Times about AOL Time Warner contains an interesting passage:

Although America Online is still profitable and its margins are better than the parent company’s music and movie divisions, they are rapidly diminishing. America Online’s customers are increasingly shifting to high-speed Internet access, an area in which AOL faces much lower margins and much tougher competition.

So this is the “troubled” division? Monday’s New York Times — this is, remember, the newspaper that on Sunday pointed out that AOL is more profitable than two of AOLTW’s other flagship businesses — says “Stephen M. Case, the chairman who was widely blamed for many of the problems at the company’s America Online unit, finally resigned.”

What problems? That its revenues and margins have been falling in the early stages of a deflationary depression? That it’s going to have to change its business to continue to make money, unlike every other business in the world, which can go on making money forever without changing anything? Or that it wasn’t invented at Time Warner?

Actually, any of those is possible. Everyone wants to be seen to be outperforming the economy generally, and most people seem to be in serious denial about the condition of the economy. Time Warner, and its cohorts in the media businesses, are stubbornly focussed on not changing any of their business models to accomodate the reality of changing technology. And nearly all companies — except the most successful — have a strong bias again things Not Invented Here. The AOL - Time Warner merger has also resulted in remarkable bitterness among the Time Warner people at the failure of AOL to be the goose that laid the golden egg.

But the story on Sunday is one of the very, very few places you’ll be able to spot this incongruity in the major media. Almost all of the big-media accounts of the AOL Time Warner debacle place the blame squarely on the shoulders of Steve Case, and to portray him as an idiot. The recent trend has been to play up the fact that he worked for Pizza Hut in the 1980s:

The 44-year-old Mr. Case, a former Pizza Hut manager who brought e-mail and Web browsing to the heartland, plans to remain on the AOL Time Warner board.

To begin with, the Times is clearly attempting to portray Case as having worn a paper hat and made pizzas. In reality, he was in a management role with the Pizza Hut company — information that’s readily available in all sort of places. According to legend, he’s responsible for Pizza Hut offering pineapple as a topping.

Whatever he did at Pizza, Hut, what the hell does this matter? It doesn’t. But it makes Steve Case look like someone who stumbled into his situation through pure luck, rather than through ability — he’s just a pizza maker! By extension, it makes AOL look like a company that was just in the right place at the right time, rather than a company in the right place at the right time that managed to come to entirely dominate its industry by doing things differently.

What we’re seeing is a full-court media-industry press on a non-media company that tried to elbow its way in. And it seems that the media, normally an incredibly introspective industry, either can’t see this, or doesn’t want to.