Big Shoe to Fill
Dynamist Blog
Overconfidence Overheard
It's likely that Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States, but it's not exactly a sure thing. (Just ask the Clintons.) So I was disturbed to hear a woman with a "Women for Obama" button tell a Santa Monica store cashier that she'd already made her plane and hotel reservations for the inauguration "because I want my children to see history made." And if Obama loses, what will she tell her children then?
Clogging the Roads with Priuses
This piece by LAT consumer columnist David Lazarus makes a perfectly reasonable point: letting more workers telecommute even one day a week would save money and cut traffic congestion. It is indeed crazy for Lazarus to spend $9 a day commuting instead of writing from home like a normal columnist.
On the way to his modest point, however, he repeats some all-too-common confusions about gas prices, traffic, and fuel efficiency. His column is worth addressing not because it's particularly bad (it isn't) or particularly influential (ditto), but because these confusions are so typical.
He starts by saying that "the more painful that things become at the pump, the more our political and business leaders will finally realize that they need to take steps, and soon, to wean us from our self-defeating oil jones." That's not how things actually work. In the real world, the more painful things become at the pump, the more drivers take steps to burn less gasoline, regardless of what political and business leaders do--and the more pressure political and business leaders are under to make those gas prices go down, so we won't have to change our driving behavior.
Like many people, Lazarus conflates his concerns about traffic congestion and gas prices. Both bumper-to-bumper traffic and $4.19-per-gallon make life unpleasant, and both have something to do with cars, but that doesn't mean fixing one problem will fix the other. Lazarus would like more fuel-efficient vehicles, which would address the expensive-gas problem; he just doesn't think we'll get them any time soon, because automakers "have to be dragged screaming and kicking into the future." But when the fuel-efficient future arrives, he'll discover that better gas mileage means more crowded roads. The more miles per gallon (or dollar) you get, the more you're willing to drive. The best thing for L.A. traffic is expensive gasoline, which is why I caught myself doing 75 mph coming back from downtown last Thursday afternoon.
Here's a cheat sheet:
Expensive gas = less driving = less congestion
More fuel efficiency = de facto cheaper gas = more driving = more congestion
More pain at the pump = Less pain on the roads (and vice versa)
Finally, $9 a day on gas???? You might think about moving closer to the office.
Interesting New Econ Blog
Growthology, from Tim Kane and Bob Litan. Very dynamist.
Propaganda Is Now Officially Hip
"An interesting Metafilter discussion on Obama campaign graphics." (Via Design Observer.)
I'll note, however, that propaganda has been hip for at least 40 years. All you have to do is check out a book like War Posters: Weapons of Mass Communications
Why Do Kids Get the Pretty Hospitals?
Interviewed by Healthcare Design Magazine, Tama Duffy Day, one of the leading interior designers specializing in health care, finds reason to hope hospitals are looking for better design. I was particularly interested in this exchange:
[Interviewer]: One thing I've wondered is why the excitement and creativity of design for children's hospitals isn't carried over, typically, to more general hospitals accommodating adults. Your thoughts?
Day: I think that's an intriguing question and, in working on about 20 projects for the Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., I've wondered the same thing myself. The best answer I have today is that, when you see a sick child or infant, you want nothing more than to support them and offer them hope — almost as though whispering "hang on." Interestingly, when you look at the other end of life, it seems the opposite — we turn away, almost as if to say "let go." I think that's changing, that we will be creating more hopeful places for people as they age.
It's an interesting theory, but I'm not convinced. After all, many (most?) hospitalized adults are not at the end of life or even close to it. Rather, I think hospitals have traditionally believed that caring about the look of one's surroundings is frivolous--childish, we might say--and therefore unsuitable for the serious business of adult health care.
I wrote about health-care aesthetics here. In the course of my research, several people told me that radiation therapy facilities tend to be more attractive. Since cancer patients have to go every single day for radiation therapy and therefore want short commutes, there are many free-standing radiation clinics that compete for patients, leading to more attention to aesthetics. Alas, the UCLA radiation therapy area, while by no means ugly, is unremarkable.
Race, Empathy, and Self-Love
A thoughtful post from Megan McArdle. (Yes, I should have posted this long ago.)
The New Test Kitchen
Safeway has opened a fast-casual restaurant in Menlo Park, California. Unlike the delis that have popped up in many supermarkets, Citrine New World Bistro isn't in a Safeway store. Neither is it a way of diversifying out of the grocery business. Rather, it's a way to test Safeway's private-label products on real diners, with an eye toward spotting emerging trends. The menu lists the Safeway brands involved, so the restaurant also serves as advertising.
This venture strikes me as somewhat similar to the Apple Store, which looks like a retailer, just as Citrine looks like a restaurant, but also serves as advertising, turns a product into an experience, and allows customers to ask questions and give the company more feedback than usual channels allow. It's also a pretty environment--not what I associate with Safeway.
Harold & Kumar Embody the Spirit of America
David Boaz explains.
Earthquake
From initial reports, the Chinese earthquake sounds pretty terrible. With magnitude of 7.9, it was 10 times as strong as the 1989 San Francisco quake and, accordingto U.S. Geological Survey stats (but not the LAT), more powerful than the 1906 quake that leveled San Francisco. And San Francisco, in either case, was much less populous than Sichuan province, which has 100 million people.
As bad as it was, however, the Sichuan quake would have been much worse had it occurred a few decades ago, when China was less open and prosperous and, thus, less resilient. As this MSNBC video points out a weaker 1976 quake killed a quarter million people. Back then, the Chinese government tried to suppress news of the quake, a stark contrast to today. Reading between the lins of this LAT report about local concerns, however, it seems Chinese government officials still don't quite know how to channel the charitable giving that inevitably follows such a disaster. But the Red Cross seems like a good start.
On a related note, I found this review of a new book about the 1755 Lisbon quake made famous by Candide interesting.