Two cases, separated by 150 years, about technology, missionaries, and institutional change: The first: In 1818 the directors of the London Missionary Society sent a mechanical clock to grace the church at its first station among the Tswana in South Africa. No ordinary clock – its hours were struck by strutting British soldiers carved of […]
A blurb-y article from Thompson Financial (in Forbes online) cites a common feeling among the financial movers and shakers about the current and most recent credit crunch: The international financial system was close to the brink in March when joint action by the U.S. Federal Reserve and JP Morgan Chase & Co. avoided the collapse […]
there’s going to be some ugliness as I work out the kinks in this new template of mine, but it’s pretty much designed as a combination of existing pastiche and original sentiment, so be nice.
Workin on some sociological goodness and a site redesign. In the meantime, I give you the always wonderful xkcd:
…and if you think kids are still dancing line dances to Electric Slide, Celebration, or even the Cha Cha Slide, you’d be wrong wrong wrong. It’s all about Soulja Boy. Luckily, 13-year-old girls still look a lot like 13-year-old girls. And 13-year-old boys? Jeez, don’t really know even what to say.
Josh Guetzkow, who has outed himself as that person who is reading my blog, is a professor at Arizona and works on income inequality and mass imprisonment (though he masquerades as a sociologist of sociology). He passes along an interesting article on bubbles and the new new real estate downturn. This is appreciated, and I […]
Lisa DePaulo, writing in the GQ blog (ht political wire) demonstrates how to do bad work. I realize this is not the NYT, but I don’t care. You interview politicians, you are doing politics. From an interview with Karl Rove: I get the sense you respect Hillary more than you respect Obama. Off the record? […]
An article by Richard Florida notes large disparities between the numbers of single men and single women in urban locations across the US. Let the conforming to already-existing gendered assumptions begin! As you can see, if you are looking for a single man, he’s on the West Coast – if you are looking for single […]
I’ve kind of been in a funk about posting, though the shennanegins of investment banks are interesting. But the massive multi-billion dollar write-downs is depressing me, and I just don’t know what to say about them. Plus, I’ve been and will be out of town for weddings and other family stuff. Will return with verve […]