Elitism - Ivies and Aggies

March 8, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston

I had thought that Republicans had cornered the market on anti-elitism. Any time the Democrats let slip some hint of “elitism” – the notion that one thing might actually be better than another – the Republicans pick it up and beat them over the head with it like something from a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Why not? Anti-elitism is part of the American value on equality. (See earlier posts on anti-elitism here and here .)

So you can imagine the reaction when one public figure who went to the “real” Cornell dumps on someone else who attended merely the Cornell agricultural college and majored in communications.

I would venture to say that the students at a third-tier law school are far more impressive than those at the Cornell agriculture school – the land-grant, non-Ivy League school he attended.

He went to Cornell. But he always forgets to mention that he went to the school that offers classes in milking and bovine management.

He didn't go to the Ivy League Cornell; he went to the Old MacDonald Cornell.
It’s like a graduate of the Yale locksmithing school boasting about being a “Yale man.”

The real Cornell, the School of Arts and Sciences (average SAT: 1,325; acceptance rate: 1 in 6 applicants), is the only Ivy League school at Cornell and the only one that grants a Bachelor of Arts degree.

He went to an affiliated state college at Cornell, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (average SAT: about that of pulling guards at the University of South Carolina; acceptance rate: 1 of every 1 applicants).
“Communications” is a major, along with “recreation science,” most commonly associated with linemen at USC.

He should thank me for revealing all this. Finally, he can stop pretending that he went to the hard-to-get-into Cornell.

Now he won't have to quickly change the subject whenever people idly remark that they didn't know it was possible to major in “communications” at an Ivy League school.

You can imagine what the conservative commentators would do with a blatantly elitist statement like this.

But wait. The person who wrote it is a conservative commentator. Ann Coulter. Her target is Keith Olbermann. (This isn’t a verbatim transcript. I took out the identifying names, and added a transition here and there.)

Coulter is a graduate of the Ivy League Cornell.* But it’s not just Olbermann and other Ag School people that she looks down on. A sidebar on her website disdains people who the Times describes as “ordinary.” The word Coulter prefers is “repellent.

Even the NYT Can’t Make “Swingers" Sound Anything Other Than Repellent

She reprints the Times headline and four brief excerpts.

At a Sex Club, the Outré Meet the Ordinary

. . . hairy-chested buzzards to Spandex matrons from the suburbs.
. . . a couple in their 60s went at it nonchalantly near buffet trays of ziti.
. . . a small, round woman
. . . the unassuming features of your fellow passenger on the bus.

Apparently, not all elitism is repugnant to the Republicans, for they love Ann Coulter. I guess it’s a case of “she’s an elitist, but she’s our elitist.

* I wonder which of these two Cornell grads two nights ago was more enthusiastic – or even knew – about the Big Red clinching a spot at the NCAA.)

The Association - XKCD version

March 6, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston

Last week, I criticized the way the press had played up an article on rap music and sex. The article implied cause where the article had established only “association.” I speculated that the reporters hadn’t taken even a basic course in sociology or statistics. I guess they don’t read XKCD either.


Or is it really about post hoc ergo propter hoc?

Mapping Mortgages

March 6, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston

USA Today had maps showing the rise in overpriced houses – mortgages that were more than four times the applicant’s income – 2000 to 2007.

)Click on the image for a larger view.)

At the USA Today website , you drag a slider over the map to change from one to the other – cool technically but not especially useful.

I wondered if there might be any similarity between the 2007 map and the county map of the Presidential election.


It’s hard to tell from just looking. If there is a correlation, it’s probably driven by the swath down the middle of the country – light blue for affordable mortgages, Republican red in the election – but I don’t have the original data. And remember, these are counties, not houses or voters. That large geographic area probably accounts for far fewer of each than do the areas east and west of it.

I've Got a Fast Connection So I Don't Have to Wait . . .

March 4, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston

You don’t expect an article form the Journal of Economic Perspectives make it to the national news . . . unless it’s about pornography, politics, and piety. Here are some typical headlines.

Red Staters Buy More Online Porn than Blue Staters (USA Today)
Red State Porn Purchasing Power (SF Chronicle)
Porn in the USA: Conservatives Are Biggest Consumers (ABC News)

The study, by Benjamin Edelman at the Harvard Business School, look at paid subscriptions to online porn sites from a single company (one of the top ten), which provided Edelman the zip codes of their subscribers.

Here’s the table that got the most attention in the press.

(Click on the table to see a larger version.)

In his New York Times blog, Charles Blow reprinted the table with the third column highlighted in red. That column shows several conservative states (Utah, Araknsas, Oklahoma) in the top ten, and several liberal states (New Jersey, Oregon, Connecticut) in the bottom ten. Blow says, “New evidence suggests that people who live in states that laud morality may also be the most lascivious.”

Is that what Edelman found? Is that even what the table shows? Look again.

When Edelman used porn subscriptions per capita (column 1), New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts were in the top ten, a finding that the media pretty much ignored. When he changed the denominator to homes with Internet access (column 2), New Jersey and Massachusetts were still in the top ten, joined by California. It was only when he changed the denominator to homes with broadband that some of these liberal states wound up in the lowest fifth, and states like Oklahoma and Arkansas hit the top ten.

Here’s what really happened. When it comes to paying for online porn, variation by state is fairly small. As Edelman says at the conclusion of his article, “interest in online adult entertainment [is] relatively constant across regions.” But regions do differ in broadband access. Using broadband rather than population has a big impact. Connecticut, Oregon, Massachusetts, California, and New Jersey are all high in broadband access (near 60% of households); Oklahoma, Arkansas, and West Virginia are all in the lowest quintile (less than 40%).

What column 3 shows is not so much who’s paying for porn but who has broadband. “Avenue Q” fans will understand:

(The first 30 seconds or so is all you need to get the idea, although the best line comes near the end. .)

The outlier in my analysis is Utah – lots of broadband, lots of porn. Can any Mormonologists out there explain this?