Happy Midwest; New York Stressed

Catharine Rampell in NYT has a great feature on variations in happiness in the US, including the great pictures below. The overall US picture on happiness shows a surprisingly happy northern Midwest/Plains; New York City area not so much

Maybe it's the stress. In Manhattan, rich downtown and mid-town are stressed out, Harlem is more relaxed (see legend below).

Your present author originated in that happy slice of northwest Ohio and is now in unhappy, stressed out Manhattan -- but please don't send me back!

P.S. Economists have done a lot of great research on income and happiness, but I will save that for a subsequent blog post.

Stop! Tom Friedman said something smart, about Arab world, Afghanistan, Pakistan

This blog and this author have given poor Mr. Friedman grief in the past for babbling nonsense. So it's only fair that we give America's favorite random idea generator credit when he comes up with a surprisingly cogent paragraph:

When one looks across the Arab world today at the stunning spontaneous democracy uprisings, it is impossible to not ask: What are we doing spending $110 billion this year supporting corrupt and unpopular regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are almost identical to the governments we’re applauding the Arab people for overthrowing?

Overlooking a few technical details -- such as Afghanistan and Pakistan NOT being almost identical to pre-revolt Tunisia, Egypt, or Libya -- the general idea seems vaguely correct. Why pour in US aid to finance a very unhappy political equilibrium?

Unusual evidence of the intense demand for quality schooling

Every parent knows admissions decision time is incredibly stressful, both for them and for their offspring. The Wall Street Journal reports that surging admissions to the best schools have made it even more stressful, and some wonder whether it's worth it:

...worries that fewer spots were available in the schools this year after siblings and legacy applicants were factored in, as well as parents' complaints that some children had been shut out unfairly from some schools.

"It's madness," said M. Starita Boyce Ansari, a Manhattan philanthropy adviser, "...they should be able to enjoy their lives instead of being subjected to all this pressure"

Oh, I forgot to mention, the group of applicants who are subject to all this pressure are: 4-year-olds.

Er, Yes, Madam, Muslims do want liberty

There is a common view that Muslims don't share the values of liberty and democracy, as expounded by, say, to take a random example, Michele Bachmann from a few years ago. Do recent events vindicate those who had already argued there was a universal hunger for liberty? One of them was Michael Novak, who says today in a Wall Street Journal oped  (gated, sorry) today:

{There was} the slumbering yet restless desire for liberty in the Muslim word...one-sixth of the human race would one day be awakened, even with an awful suddenness.

It may be that this is what we are seeing today, if only in a promissory note to be fully cashed in years to come. A rebellion against a cruel dictator is not same long step as a choice for a polity of law and rights; it is only a step.

Yet it took the Jewish and Christian worlds centuries to begin cashing in their own longings for liberty...The universal hunger for liberty is not satisfied in any one generation..

But let us now rejoice that in our time we have lived to see one of liberty's most fertile and widespread explosions. Islam, a religion of rewards and punishments, is -- like Christiantiy and Judaism -- a religion of liberty. History will bear this out.

David Brooks in NYT agrees on the Arab world:

many people in Arab nations do share a universal hunger for liberty. They feel the presence of universal human rights and feel insulted when they are not accorded them.

Culture is important, but underneath cultural differences there are these universal aspirations for dignity, for political systems that listen to, respond to and respect the will of the people.

Solving the education puzzle? Test scores and growth

There has long been a mystery in why the rapid growth of education in poor countries did not pay off in growth of production per worker, above all in Africa (best captured by a classic paper by Lant Pritchett, Where has all the education gone?, ungated here) Eric Hanushek at Stanford has been working for the past several years on test scores as a possible resolution of the puzzle. If education doesn't translate into higher test scores, then there is something else wrong along the way, which likely includes well-known problems like absent teachers and missing textbooks. He showed this picture in a 2008 paper, and he has a stream of papers since, all with coauthor Ludger Woessman.

Growth is growth of income per person 1960-2000. Both growth and test scores are measured "conditionally," that is how well they do relative to a country's initial educational enrollment and income in 1960.

Of course, test scores are a potentially sensitive subject, as some will think they are tests of intrinsic intelligence. Is this whole area of research racist?

Not necessarily, of course. Let's take racist stories of differing intelligence between nations off the table, and consider all the other factors that could be reflected in such widely varying test scores relative to educational enrollment and income.

Hey, fellow committee member, are you the weakest link?

UPDATE: 12:18 PM SEE END OF POST I was just on a committee that selected a small number of papers from a large number of submissions for a conference.  We each graded each paper and then we had to come up with a rule to go from our individual grades to a ranking of the papers to decide which ones got into the conference. So here are some possible rules:

(1) one veto kills the paper

So the overall grade for the paper equals the minimum of all of our grades, so if even just one of us flunks the paper, the paper flunks. You need to satisfy all of us. In econ lingo, you can't SUBSTITUTE one of us with a positive opinion for another one of us with a negative opinion.

ANALOGY: the "weakest link" production function, in which whatever input the economy has least constrains the whole output. Note that zero substitution means that all inputs/committee members are perfect complements. This is the world view of those who like Big Pushes to increase all the development  inputs at once.

(2) simple average

Averaging our grades goes to the other extreme of perfect SUBSTITUTION between us. One of us with a positive opinion cancels out (i.e. substitutes for) another one of us with a negative opinion. We committee members are not complements at all: the value of my grade is not influenced by your grade.

ANALOGY: the old Human Development Index.

Also in production functions relating Development to inputs, this rule  implies extreme flexibility. Rich economies feature this selectively to compensate for weakest links -- if the whole system is going to fail because of one input, then have a backup input that is a perfect substitute.

(3) geometric averages

This exotic animal  (cube root of the 3 grades multiplied together) is in between (1) and (2). You can partially but not completely substitute for one of us with another one of us. So for example if we were just grading A,B,C (numerically 3,2,1), then a paper with the score (2,2,2) has a higher geometric average than a paper with the grades (3,1,2) although they both had the same simple average under 2. We are also partial complements -- the higher is your grade, the stronger is the effect of my grade.

ANALOGY: the new Human Development Index, which an Aid Watch post criticized for TOO MUCH complementarity. The higher was committee member Per Capita Income, the stronger was the effect of another committee member Life Expectancy, which has the unappealing property that we value lives of rich people far more than those of poor people. Makes more sense for production functions than for HDI.

The ending of the actual committee story-- qualitative discussions were necessary for choosing the final papers in the end after constructing the mechanical indexes. Let me see what is the analogy here...

UPDATE: thanks to both of you for reading this wonky post all the way to the end. Do you think I have atoned for that Swimsuit Edition post now? and even the followup Swimsuit Edition post also?

On Sustainable Sustainability: A UN Prose Poem

UPDATE 2: Another proposal received from Unconfirmed Sources: Politicians supporting UN funding will be required to incorporate all of the text below into one of their own speeches to their own voters. UPDATE: Just got a new proposal from the Center for Unacceptable Common Sense: Anyone funding UN should internalize the effect of their funding on creation of UN prose. First proposed tax on you: you are required to read all 1000+ words below and recite once for every $100K of funding.

Experimenting with a new literary form, cutting and pasting phrases from a UN report into a work of prose poetry (from the UN 2008 report Achieving Sustainable Development and Promoting Development Cooperation):

productive and interactive discussions during the high-level policy dialogue with the international financial and trade institutions on sustainable development in the context of climate change, development cooperation and the threats to the global economy. Participants emphasized the need for greater coordination among the institutions.

A key message of the Forum was the need to build a broader consensus around the aid effectiveness agenda.

These events have served to deepen the discussions and promote consensus building in partnership with key stakeholders on issues in the Council’s agenda.

a Ministerial Declaration, which underscored the need for urgent, collective and collaborative action by all

members of the international community in several areas of global concern

Moreover, new challenges require urgent attention and collective action.

to facilitate inclusive policy dialogue and policy review on key development cooperation issues

to contribute to the latest efforts for promoting collective solutions, including strengthening governance, creating markets for sustainable development, strengthening global cooperation,

.. underlined the need to generate political will to put prudent policies into action

new challenges, many of which require our urgent attention and collective action.

At the same time, challenges also offer opportunities. The need to engage all key actors in this process is widely recognized. We must persist in pursuing truly concerted action

All countries certainly need policies and institutions that are flexible and tailored to their changing domestic and external circumstances and their individual challenges.

framework is not sufficiently responsive to development issues that cut

across multiple sectors such as human rights, gender equality and environmental sustainability. The Development Cooperation Forum should give due attention to these cross-cutting imperatives.

will enable the Council to move forward with firm commitment and strong political will to implement.

need to develop coherent and integrated approaches to development, which place the issue of sustainability at the center of development strategies.

have brought renewed dynamism to the implementation of development goals, by promoting greater

interaction among the different constituencies. The inclusion of civil society organizations, parliamentarians as well as local government and private sector representatives is essential in sustaining the engagement and commitment of all stakeholders in bridging the implementation gap.

..has become much more than just a month-long meeting in New York. The substantive session is a culmination of the various activities

..can benefit from the Council’s thorough work based on extensive regional consultations, global consultative forums and above all its broad-based engagement, which provides all perspectives to multilateral deliberations. I believe that Council’s deliberations and debates during this session would

greatly enrich discussions and outcomes of the important development related

conferences and events. The Council has shown that it is increasingly becoming better equipped to assess

progress on the ground and galvanize action at national, regional and international levels.

New global, regional and local approaches are needed given the unprecedented confluence of crises that at times require conflicting solutions.

Given the complex situation, he enumerated several policy options for governments to consider.

He stressed that policy makers need to respond flexibly,. No one country can overcome all the complex and

inter-related challenges on its own. Therefore, {he} called for international cooperation to help find global solutions to interrelated global problems. International institutions should not operate in isolation.

a unique opportunity to re-energize the mutual accountability framework

He appealed to governments and international financial institutions to take a more proactive approach to rapidly evolve coherent policy frameworks and incentives

Yet, in an interdependent world, many of the threats and challenges cannot be met by governments acting on their own. They require collective international action. Multilateral solutions, based on full participation and open dialogue, remain the best hope for providing a secure economic future for all.

We need a clear view of what is to be done at the global level, what at the regional level, and what at the national level. At the same time, short-term crises require their own strategies. we really do need a long-term strategy, aside from the immediateemergency needs

the international community agreed on a mutual accountability framework for development cooperation. Pursuant to that framework, developing countries have taken important steps to strengthen governance and improve the quality of their economic policies and institutions

..actively engaged in supporting the agenda outlined, working closely with countries and in partnership with bilateral agencies and multilateral institutions.

the World Bank looks forward to still closer partnership with the Economic and Social Council, to make the alliance between Council’s political message and the Bank’s comprehensive development focus even more effective and fruitful.

As part of the efforts to strengthen the United Nations Economic and Social Council, Member States, …mandated the Council to convene a high level biennial Development Cooperation Forum to review trends in international development cooperation, including strategies, policies and financing; promote greater coherence among the development activities of different development partners; and strengthen the normative and operational link in the work of the United Nations.

as a key venue for global dialogue and policy review of the effectiveness and coherence of international

development cooperation. … Forum also reaffirmed the demand for an inclusive and universally recognized space for discussions on international development cooperation. By giving voice to a wide range of stakeholders, including civil society, parliaments, local governments and the private sector, the Forum gave promise of becoming an effective global platform for representative, participatory and multistakeholder dialogue on major development cooperation issues.

Stakeholders are encouraged to continue to engage in the upcoming consultations and to interact with the

Council and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs to ensure that all voices are heard in the preparations for the Forum. The Department will also continue to provide impartial, professional and responsive policy analysis and review of gaps and obstacles to effective and coherent international development cooperation.

And in other news, the UK announced it was eliminating funding to four UN aid agencies.

The Reciprocity Principle

Nick Kristof generously quoted a statement from an earlier blog post:

I don’t support autocracy in your society if I don’t want it in my society.

This could also apply to some other common themes of this post:

I won't invade your country unless I want you to invade mine.

I won't use exploitative photos of you for fund-raising unless I want you to use exploitative photos of me for fund-raising.

I won't support my aid agencies forcing you to do something unless I want your aid agencies to force me to do something.

I won't listen to my celebrities' opinions on your affairs unless I want you to listen to your celebrities' opinions on my affairs.

I'm sure the readers can think of other examples of the reciprocity principle, as well as some reasons why it does not ALWAYS apply.

This principle may not be a completely original contribution of the current author.

The Answer

....that no single key, no formula can, in principle, solve the problems of individuals or societies; that general solutions are not solutions, universal ends are never real ends.... ...that liberty--of actual individuals, in specific times and places--is an absolute value; that a minimum area of free action is a moral necessity for all men, not to be suppressed in the name of abstractions or general principles so freely bandied about by the great thinkers of this or any age, such as ... humanity, or progress...names invoked to justify acts of detestable cruelty and despotism, magic formulas designed to stifle the voices of human feeling and consience.

This is Isaiah Berlin describing the views of the great Russian thinker Alexander Herzen (1812-1870), although I think he was also describing the views of the great Russian thinker Isaiah Berlin. It's from one of my all-lifetime-favorite books, Russian Thinkers. (HT Dennis Whittle for reminding me of the Herzen chapter.)

Berlin presents the lite version of Herzen in a direct quote from his autobiography:

'Human life is a great social duty,' [said Louis Blanc], 'man must constantly sacrifice himself for society.'

'Why?' I asked suddenly.

'How do you mean "Why?"-but surely the whole purpose and mission of man is the well-being of society?' [said Blanc]

'But it will never be attained if everybody makes sacrifices and nobody enjoys himself.'

Another version of this I heard a long time ago, not sure where:

The purpose of life is to live for others.

Then what should the others live for?

Kristof on Ending Double Standards on Democracy

A crude stereotype lingers that some people — Arabs, Chinese and Africans — are incompatible with democracy.

Nick Kristof disagrees.

The Swimsuit Debate continues (sigh)....

...probably exhausting the patience of this blog's readers. Robin Hanson responds to my updated post on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue:

Easterly doesn’t explain how exactly watching swimsuit models induces disrespect and harassment, and I find it hard to see the imagined causal path.

As I made clear to Robin in an email exchange, I don't think this debate hinges on an empirical claim. Nobody decides whether to use the N-word or not based on randomized controlled trials of whether its use quantitatively predicts assaults on African Americans. We have a moral sense of what is respectful, how to treat our fellow human beings with dignity, how to treat them as equals, in short, what respects their individual rights. Treating women as sex objects transgresses the moral obligation to respect the rights of women.  I believe the Swimsuit Issue does that; others may disagree.

Now it's really WAY past the time that two middle-aged male economists should get back to their own areas of specialized knowledge...

Why we'll always have benevolent autocrats

Last Friday, Bill gave a talk at the School for International and Public Affairs at Columbia.  NYU-Wagner student Christopher Faris summarized the speech over on the Wagner blog, and gives a great run-down of the audience reaction at Columbia:

...Easterly argued that the theory of growth-boosting 'benevolent autocrats' (think China's economic boom) is, at best, not proven and at worst a compelling but flawed idea to which development practitioners hopefully cling - to everyone's detriment.

But the benevolent dictator is a powerful and compelling idea, dating back at least as far as Plato's Republic. Despite the carefully constructed argument and engaging delivery, the audience of ambitious internationalistas seemed unconvinced, if the questions were anything to go by.

Most questioners (professors and students) wanted to believe in the abiding power and potential for a benevolent technocrat to guide countries through transition; to protect the nation's economic well-being from the foibles of the electoral process; or in the cultural appropriateness of more autocratic leadership in some countries at certain points in their history.

All of which got me to thinking (with apologies to Carrie Bradshaw):

• Maybe international development students are committed to the idea that, through our education, ideas and energy, individuals can advocate for good policies and make the world a better place;
• Perhaps we want to believe in the power of strong, technocratic leaders, benevolently steering developing nations through the rapids of the global economy and pro-poor reform;
• Maybe, just maybe, we are all benevolent autocrat wannabes?

[Easterly's discussion of cognitive biases] added up to a pretty compelling argument against benevolent autocrat theory - or at least a strong case for us to be wary of buying it too easily...

But then came the questions. Once the SIPA professors finished, almost all were from international students (with a Latin and East Asian trend), and almost all betrayed an unshaken faith in benevolent autocrat theory.

So if Professor Easterly failed to convince, why? A few suggestions: because the biases he enumerated are indeed powerful shapers of thinking; because his audience was committed to the possibility of making a difference through their actions; because a more laissez-faire approach to international development is a tough sell to idealistic students.

But further: Easterly described what developing economies should aim for (to transition to innovation-rich modern economies, harnessing local knowledge, and with democratic political systems containing checks and balances against autocratic tendencies) but was light on details of how to do it. He offered a compass bearing but no map. Perhaps we, students and practitioners of development, want maps - especially at this thrilling time of autocrat-toppling. And we want to be able to help. We have a strong pro-action bias.

Mr. Faris generously skipped the possibility that the argument was just WRONG, but he has good insights into the resistance to the argument even if it's correct.

Third World America

UPDATE 11:20AM: accused of Detroit "poverty porn", see response below. As you may have noticed, this blog sees America itself as an interesting development laboratory. Others seem to agree, as a new report applies the Human Development Index to the US.

The site has a cool mapping function. Here is a map of health that locates Third World America in the Deep South and its borderlands.

The South as Third World holds up controlling for race and gender, as the same area shows the highest concentration of white females with less than high school education.

Of course, in metro areas we have an inner city Third World hiding in plain sight.  Here is Detroit for example, right next to "First World" Pontiac:

Commenters accuse Aid Watch of some kind of "poverty porn" on Detroit.

OK, I already apologized for my catastrophic bonehead mistake of carelessly applying the label "downtown" to the negative picture (now removed).

As further recompense, here is a nice happy positive picture of the real "downtown Detroit." Unfortunately, I have to stick by the original characterization of much of Detroit as belonging to the "Third World" part of America, based on all the evidence on unemployment, poverty, etc. that I have examined in detail. It's going to take more than a few happy pictures to fix that.

Have fun on your own exploring Third World America on this great site.

Toppling Qaddafi

Who was that madman ranting about his hallucinations on Libyan TV, desperately in need of an anger management intervention? Oops, that's the ruler of the country. He has gotten even more ridiculously scary since our last post.

A small group of young people who have taken drugs have attacked police station like mice ... However there is a small group of sick people that has infiltrated in cities that are circulating drugs and money.

This bunch of greasy rats and cats.

Libya wants glory, Libya wants to be at the pinnacle, at the pinnacle of the world...I am a fighter, a revolutionary from tents ... I will die as a martyr at the end...to my last drop of blood. ...You men and women who love Gaddafi ... get out of your homes and fill the streets. Leave your homes and attack them in their lairs. They are taking your children and getting them drunk and sending them to death. For what? To destroy Libya, burn Libya. .. Forward, forward, forward!

Sympathies to the courageous Libyans fighting for their freedom against this crazed tyrant.

What can the rest of the world do? The usual "don't just stand there, do something" could result in counter-productive actions. Any military intervention would play into Qaddafi's hand, especially since there really is nobody that can be trusted to do a "neutral humanitarian" intervention.

Trade embargo not a good idea -- why punish the Libyan people? Libya's opening to tourism and trade with the West in the last few years has arguably made this current revolt more possible, not less possible.

(True confessions: I went to Libya myself for a trek in the Sahara over Christmas holiday. And I have to also confess that, even being extremely skeptical of "benevolent autocrats," I too was deceived that "Qaddafi had changed.")

Too many NOs for you? Well here's some Constructive NOs: NO to any aid to Libya, NO to any caving in to Libyan government contract blackmail, NO to arms sales, NO to "colonial reparations." NO to "slavish" courting of Qaddafi (Feel free to apply any of all of that to you, Prime Minister Berlusconi).

YES to freezing foreign assets of the Qaddafi family, which the FT reports to be substantial (OK, Swiss?)

Wilderness to brothels to Apple store: the History of Development in one block

We usually analyze Development at the national level. Why not other levels? At the other extreme, here is a short and surprising illustrated history of one city block. Before Europeans arrived, it was a wilderness lightly inhabited by the Delaware ethnic group.

By the late 1600s, this block was part of a hilly 200-acre farm owned by the prominent Dutch official Nicholas Bayard (1644-1707). By the time of this painting in 1768, there was more development to the south, but this farm was still owned by the Bayard family.

A map in 1782 shows a 100 foot hill and Minetta Creek. The hill would later be levelled and the creek paved over.

In the summer of 1822, a yellow fever epidemic in the city to the south prompted an exodus of wealthy residents to this block. Anthony Arnoux, a merchant tailor, built this house in 1824. The Arnoux family would remain until 1860, when they relocated further uptown.

Their exodus reflected the deterioration of the neighborhood. The location of many hotels nearby on Broadway fueled a boom in prostitution in the 1850s. In this one block alone, there were 23 brothels. In 1862, Mary Ann Temple was arrested for running a whorehouse in the former Arnoux house.

The next boom was in more traditional sectors. The construction of a railroad depot nearby and good transport connections to national and international markets fueled a neighborhood boom in factories and warehouses.  In 1880, this factory was constructed, next door to the old residence and brothel, using the cast iron process that made it possible to build 6- and 7- story buildings with spacious rooms and high ceilings. The process was pioneered by James Bogardus, who had built a cast iron factory downtown in 1848.

Alas industrial booms don't last forever, and in the 20th century the neighborhood became a decaying industrial wasteland.

The powerful urban planner Robert Moses wanted to raze the neighborhood for his 8-lane Lower Manhattan Expressway, which he had first proposed in 1928. His plan was finally approved by the City Council and Mayor Robert Wagner on February 13, 1961. Opposing Moses was the great neighborhood activist and author Jane Jacobs, whom New York police arrested at one point for "inciting to riot." But on August 21, 1969,  Mayor John Lindsay finally killed the project.

In 1967, with real estate prices depressed by the uncertainty about the Expressway and the deterioration of the neighborhood, a Lithuanian-American artist named George Maciunas had bought one of the old factories and converted into a studio and residence for his artist co-op. Many artists followed in his wake. The neighborhood was not zoned for residences, so the pioneer artist-residents lived illegally, finding ways to tap into power and water supplies.

Eventually, city bureaucrats passed an artist exemption legalizing the arrangement. The neighborhood was reborn as an artist colony and attracted a huge concentration of art galleries.

Non-artist celebrities and the rich found a way to get lofts for themselves in the neighborhood in the following decades. Upscale shops followed.

The ultimate culmination of centuries of development was of course the Apple store located at the end of the block.

Today this block (Greene Street between Houston and Prince) is part of Soho and one of the wealthiest blocks in the city (and the world).

Its history had been a series of unexpected events involving many actors, from Nicholas Bayard to the yellow fever mosquito to Anthony Arnoux to James Bogardus to Jane Jacobs to George Maciunas, few or none of whom could have anticipated the outcomes of their actions. Like many other examples, Soho illustrates that a lot of economic development is a surprise.

Photo credits: 1,2,3: Manahatta; 4 author; 5 New York Times ;  6,7 author; 8 Life Magazine March 27, 1970, 9 The Historical Atlas of New York City; 10, 11 author; 12 photo from Google Maps.

A Presidents' Day for Protesters

President's Day is really a lame holiday.  But the protesters around the world are rescuing it. Here is my all-time favorite definition of democracy, from one of today's honorees--Abraham Lincoln:

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.

The genius of the first sentence is reciprocity: democracy means I will not impose on anyone else anything I do not want anyone else to impose on me. If everyone follows this rule, then ... democracy. It captures "all are created equal" and individual rights in 14 words (10 of them words of 3 letters or less), what a nice contrast to all those wordy attempts to define democracy! (including this blog post)

Could reciprocity extend internationally as well? I don't support autocracy in your society if I don't want it in my society?

For the figurative slaves protesting against your figurative slaveholders in Libya, in Bahrain, in Iran, everywhere else...may you realize your dream of democracy.

Sports Illustrated releases annual Mainstreaming Gender Objectification issue

UPDATE 2/25: Robin Hanson's blog offers a defense of the Swimsuit Issue. (Strangely it fails to mention this post although it uses the same "Top 10"  link as below. Maybe Professor Hanson regularly surfs feminist blogs.) This is a teaching moment for economists -- does the relentless marketing of a "swimsuit" young female body type as sex object create a negative externality for women in general? (only economists use the words "externality," "sex" and "swimsuit" in the same sentence). I would say yes, Robin apparently says no.  I think the explosion of such marketing has been a negative trend since the 1960s, inducing more women to be treated disrespectfully or harassed, partially offsetting other gains in women's rights. If you believe individual rights are a key to development, then I think this is an important development discussion (in case you were very justifiably wondering?!)

Original post is below:

see lucid discussion Top 10 Ways Sports Illustrated Disrespects Women

a bit more jargon here

comments from my own sources:

"nobody really could have bust measurement that large and a waist size that small";

"so the ideal is a half-starved 20-year-old Eastern European with implants?"

A tragic sexual assault becomes pretext to insult both women and Muslims

Update Sunday 2/20/2010: good stories in NYT today: Reporting While Female and Why We Need Women in War Zones One of my favorite blogs, the awesome Wronging Rights, does the definitive take on the Lara Logan story, a CBS reporter who was sexually assaulted on one of the violent days during the Egypt uprising:

The internet, it appeared, was largely in agreement: what happened to Logan was terrible, but hardly surprising - what else could possibly be the result when a girl with "model good looks" is "sent" to a public place full of unrestrained Muslims?

....to say that Lara Logan was in Tahrir Square largely because of her "model good looks" is pretty much just textbook misogyny. Her looks do not cancel out any, much less all, of the myriad other relevant facts. Such as her four years of reporting from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq; her job title, which, last time I checked, was "Chief Foreign Correspondent for CBS News;" or that she had bravely returned to report on the story despite being arrested earlier in the month, and expelled from the country. To discard all of her hard work, and deny her accomplishments, merely because she is an attractive woman, is damn sexist.

....{If she was less attractive} would she be safe from the mob of 200 people who apparently decided to subject her to a prolonged beating and repeated sexual assaults because her delicate beauty stirred their romantic longings? Give me a break. Rape is about power, not how cute the victim is.

So seriously, internets, pull yourselves together. Lara Logan is a professional who suffered a horrific attack in the course of doing a dangerous job. Women all over the world take similar risks every day. We do so because we don't see "vulnerability to rape" as our most salient characteristic. It's about time everyone else picked up on that too.

Dictators v. Democracy: our Autocrat Unintentional Self-Parody Index (AUSPI)

Update 2pm Saturday Feb 19: more reports of protests today in Benghazi, and more killings by Qaddafi forces. Qaddafi strategy of cutting Libya off from intl media and Net seems to be working, as these heroic protesters are not getting much world attention. UPDATE 4pm: Shaky reports of more protests and massacres out of Libya. This eloquent statement in the Guardian by a noted Libyan author:

I appeal to Colonel Gaddafi and his security forces: for the sake of the mothers, for the sake of those who died, for the sake of Libya, please don't shoot and torture your people.

Hisham Matar

As reported in the Guardian, this video posted on Youtube shows protesters in Tobruk knocking over a statue of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's Green Book:

We took a first step towards this rigorous index in an earlier post.  Reacting to news that even Libya is having protest demonstrations, we think that the outlook for democracy in Libya could be affected by the comically extreme AUSPI shown below.

As the latest tragic news comes in of protester deaths, the people of Libya are not laughing...