September, 2008

Just wanted to offer a reminder that data is as data does. Everything can be described using numbers. (You know, like how psychology is just a special application of biology, which is just a special application of chemistry, which is just a special application of physics, which is just a special application of math.)

But most people don't speak numbers very well. If you want to get a point across to those people, you have to find a way to make the numbers into a pretty picture. Something inevitably gets lost along the way, and if you're not careful, you may end up giving the wrong idea entirely. And, of course, sometimes the people who make charts intend to lead people astray. So you gotta be S-M-R-T! And pay attention.

Here's an example of a chart that appeared in the Washington Post and probably has a lot of people thinking something that isn't true:

Sg,

Believe it or not, a lot of folks are blind to bigotry that isn’t directed at them. For example, many would need to see a cross burning before they would call racism, a swastika before calling anti-semitism, or a “No Girls Allowed” sign before calling sexism.

What these people don’t get—what many of them are determined not to get—is that overt symbols and acts of bigotry, while bad news, are just the tip of the iceberg. Real damage is done by unquestioned cultural assumptions about what it means to be other (e.g. black, Jewish, woman, Muslim, poor, gay, etc.). These assumptions are so powerful because they are carried, like infectious disease are carried by people who don’t realize they’re infected, into all of the systems that determine who has power in our society. Very, very few people think of themselves as bigots, yet black people who kill whites in the United States are several times more likely to receive the death penalty than whites who kill blacks. Women earn about 80% as much as men doing the same jobs. Traffic planners seem to ignore the safety of kids and pedestrians in poor neighborhoods.

You won’t be on the receiving end of most forms of systemic bigotry, so it may not be so obvious. Which is why it’s worth listening to those who spend their time noticing, thinking about and writing about bigotry. Awareness of the problem is key to not being part of it.

I followed a link today (h/t Ta-Nehisi Coates) to an article that uses the current presidential campaign as a backdrop for pointing out some of those corrosive cultural assumptions. You (hopefully) won’t have any knowledge of the people mentioned in the piece, but I don’t think that should injure the points being made. Here’s an excerpt (and pardon the language, but it’s kind of integral to the point being made):

I'll try to remember to make some brief notes about your day here tomorrow, in case anyone ever asks you where you were on the day the economy collapsed^*:

In one of the most dramatic days in Wall Street’s history, Merrill Lynch agreed to sell itself to Bank of America for roughly $50 billion to avert a deepening financial crisis, while another prominent securities firm, Lehman Brothers, hurtled toward liquidation after it failed to find a buyer.

The humbling moves, which reshape the landscape of American finance, mark the latest chapter in a tumultuous year in which once-proud financial institutions have been brought to their knees as a result of hundreds of billions of dollars in losses because of bad mortgage finance and real estate investments.

But even as the fates of Lehman and Merrill hung in the balance Sunday night, another crisis loomed as the insurance giant American International Group appeared to teeter. A.I.G. sought a $40 billion lifeline from the Federal Reserve, without which the company may have only days to survive.

The stunning series of events culminated a weekend of frantic around-the-clock negotiations, as Wall Street bankers huddled in meetings at the behest of Bush administration officials to try to avoid a downward spiral in the markets stemming from a crisis of confidence.

“My goodness. I’ve been in the business 35 years, and these are the most extraordinary events I’ve ever seen,” said Peter G. Peterson, co-founder of the private equity firm the Blackstone Group, who was head of Lehman in the 1970s and a secretary of commerce in the Nixon administration.

^* I'm exaggerating a bit for fun, but it really is a little scary.

Cleaning graffiti photo by cannonsnapper

Sg, I noticed today that we recently (though I'm not sure exactly when) passed a milestone. I once would have saved cleaning the house for your naptime, because cleaning the house while watching you was more trouble than doing the two things separately (even if I had to give up the personal time I might have had during your nap).

By this morning, it seemed pretty reasonable to clean the house with your “help” so that I could do goofy blog stuff during your nap. You're more independent, and you can follow basic instructions (like “let's not take the dirty dishes out of the washer just yet”).

On another note, there is a guy running for president of the United States who is proposing massive tax cuts. Our current president was also a big fan of tax cuts, and people are wondering where the government will get the money it needs for domestic programs and foreign wars if we have even more tax cuts. This guy running for president says he'll put a stop to “government earmarks” to reduce government spending. It amazes me how many people don't realize how silly this is.

An “earmark” is when some money in an appropriations bill gets dedicated to a specific thing. For example, Congress might approve $800 million in spending on roads in Alabama, and the bill might include an earmark saying that $150 million of that must be spent on a particular road in an Alabama senator's home town. Remove the earmark, and the total spending is still $800 million. No savings.

Now, it may be the case that government spending would be more efficient without earmarks, and thus cost a little less in the long run. But that's far from obvious to me. (It may be that home state Congressmen and -women know better than the Congress as a whole what federal dollars should be spent on, which would make earmarks more, not less, efficient.)

Just wanted to point that out in case people are still having this stupid conversation when you're of voting age. Enjoy your nap.