December 20, 2010
Posted by Jay Livingston
She was crying – a student in my ten o’clock class, sitting on a couch in the broad stairwell near the classroom. Her face was red, her body shook slightly. Another girl in the class was sitting next to her trying to comfort her. I stopped and sat down across from them.
The girl’s father was dying. He had been diagnosed many months ago, and the doctor had recommended a treatment available at only one hospital. But the hospital was not “in network,” and the insurance company had refused to cover the costs. The family was not at all wealthy – the girl was paying tuition with what she could scrape together from her job and loans – so that was that. Now the cancer had spread. It was inoperable, and his in-network hospital had sent him home with some liquid morphine and Dilaudid.
I told her not to worry about taking the final exam. We’d make some arrangement.
* * * *
I see Sara Palin is still using the “death panel” line (see her recent WSJ piece). Back when she introduced it, Politifact gave it their most flagrant false rating (“Pants on Fire”) on their Truthometer. But when you’ve come up with a catchy phrase that your base responds to, why not keep using it?
At the time, I wondered why Obamacare proponents didn’t point out that we already had death panels – not the fantasy ones in the imagination of Palin and her peeps, but real ones staffed by the insurance companies. “Recission,” the insurers called it – rescinding a policy on whatever pretext they could come up with when the patient’s bills threatened to run to real money. “Recission” sounds so much nicer than “death panels”; it has a precise, almost surgical ring to it.
The Democrats, even when they exposed the policy, continued to use the industry’s term. Insurance executives testifying to Congressional committees all said that recission is a minor matter, a distraction, since it affects only half of one percent of policy holders. Several bloggers later pointed out what was wrong with this math (my earlier post with links is here). But even at face value, it’s daunting. Half of one percent is five per thousand. If one-third of the population has health insurance, that’s 100 million. Five per 1000 is 5,000 per million, times 100 is half a million people.
I assume that this recission rate is lifetime, not annual. It’s not a huge number, especially if you translate it into that small-sounding percentage. So you really don’t have to think about it – not until you’re on your way to class, and you see a girl weeping for her dying father, and you still can’t get that image out of your head.
Word Count
December 17, 2010
Posted by Jay Livingston
Google’s new tool is too cool. It tracks the word count of any word or phrase in “lots of books” going back as far as 1800 if you like. And it’s fast. An instant reading of the Zeitgeist.
The rise and fall of sociology tracks with the discourse of social class.
(Click on an image for a larger view.)
Want to confirm your impression about the rise of soccer?
In some cases, it’s hard to figure out the relation between what’s in “lots of books” and what’s happening in the real world. The decline in “robbery” in books starts 15 years ahead of the decrease in robbery in the real world. And as robbery in the streets starts to decline, its representation on the page starts to rise. Go figure.
Warning: this is a real time-suck, at least it was for me today when I first discovered it.
Posted by Jay Livingston
Google’s new tool is too cool. It tracks the word count of any word or phrase in “lots of books” going back as far as 1800 if you like. And it’s fast. An instant reading of the Zeitgeist.
The rise and fall of sociology tracks with the discourse of social class.
(Click on an image for a larger view.)Want to confirm your impression about the rise of soccer?
In some cases, it’s hard to figure out the relation between what’s in “lots of books” and what’s happening in the real world. The decline in “robbery” in books starts 15 years ahead of the decrease in robbery in the real world. And as robbery in the streets starts to decline, its representation on the page starts to rise. Go figure.
Warning: this is a real time-suck, at least it was for me today when I first discovered it.
The Sneakiest Sneak
December 16, 2010
Posted by Jay Livingston
You’ve probably seen this variant of the quarterback sneak – it’s gotten millions of hits on YouTube, and it’s been reported on broadcast TV. If not, take 30 seconds and watch it.
It isn’t really sneaky. In fact, it’s brazen. And it brings us tonight’s word: Definition of the Situation.
It’s Intro Sociology, W. I. Thomas. When you are in a situation, you need to know what’s going on.
You need to know what that situation is - a date or just coffee between friends, a formal class or a relaxed discussion, etc. The definition tells you who you are; it tells you who the others in that situation are (lover, student, friend, etc.). It tells you what you should do. The definition of the situation is all about roles and rules.
Faced with an unfamiliar situation, you look around for a definition, and the usual strategy is to take your cues from others, especially those who seem to know what’s going on – people with competence or authority in that situation. That dependence on the definitions of strangers has been the basis of many Candid Camera stunts and social psychology experiments, where the strangers are acting not with kindness but with deception and manipulation.
In this middle-school football play, the quarterback and center do something unusual for someone in those roles. They don’t violate the official rulebook, but their behavior is outside the norms of the game everyone knows. What’s going on? Has the play begun? The defense looks around to the others for their cue as to what to do. They see the offensive line motionless in their stances, seemingly waiting for the play to start. They see their own teammates too looking uncertain rather than trying to make a tackle. So nobody defines the play as having started. But it has. Only when the quarterback, having walked past eight definitionless* players, starts running do they arrive at an accurate definition, and by then, it’s too late. Touchdown.
UPDATE: Although W.I. Thomas coined the term definition of the situation, what the video dramatizes is really closer to Goffman’s use of the term
* Someone does offer a definition – the coach of the team on offense This play immediately followed a 5-yard offsides penalty on the defense. Now the coach of the team in white yells at his quarterback that it should have been a 10-yard penalty and he should walk off another five yards. The quarterback starts to do so, and none of the defense remembers at first that only referees, not quarterbacks, can respot the ball for a penalty.
Posted by Jay Livingston
You’ve probably seen this variant of the quarterback sneak – it’s gotten millions of hits on YouTube, and it’s been reported on broadcast TV. If not, take 30 seconds and watch it.
It isn’t really sneaky. In fact, it’s brazen. And it brings us tonight’s word: Definition of the Situation.
It’s Intro Sociology, W. I. Thomas. When you are in a situation, you need to know what’s going on.
You need to know what that situation is - a date or just coffee between friends, a formal class or a relaxed discussion, etc. The definition tells you who you are; it tells you who the others in that situation are (lover, student, friend, etc.). It tells you what you should do. The definition of the situation is all about roles and rules.
Faced with an unfamiliar situation, you look around for a definition, and the usual strategy is to take your cues from others, especially those who seem to know what’s going on – people with competence or authority in that situation. That dependence on the definitions of strangers has been the basis of many Candid Camera stunts and social psychology experiments, where the strangers are acting not with kindness but with deception and manipulation.
In this middle-school football play, the quarterback and center do something unusual for someone in those roles. They don’t violate the official rulebook, but their behavior is outside the norms of the game everyone knows. What’s going on? Has the play begun? The defense looks around to the others for their cue as to what to do. They see the offensive line motionless in their stances, seemingly waiting for the play to start. They see their own teammates too looking uncertain rather than trying to make a tackle. So nobody defines the play as having started. But it has. Only when the quarterback, having walked past eight definitionless* players, starts running do they arrive at an accurate definition, and by then, it’s too late. Touchdown.
UPDATE: Although W.I. Thomas coined the term definition of the situation, what the video dramatizes is really closer to Goffman’s use of the term
it will be in his interests to control the conduct of the others, especially their responsive treatment of him. This control is achieved largely by influencing the definition of the situation which the others come to formulate, and he can influence this definition by expressing himself in such a way as to give them the kind of impression that will lead them to act voluntarily in accordance with his own plan.-----------------------------
— from the opening section of The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.
* Someone does offer a definition – the coach of the team on offense This play immediately followed a 5-yard offsides penalty on the defense. Now the coach of the team in white yells at his quarterback that it should have been a 10-yard penalty and he should walk off another five yards. The quarterback starts to do so, and none of the defense remembers at first that only referees, not quarterbacks, can respot the ball for a penalty.
Welfare (and Wal-Mart) at the Eleventh Hour
December 14, 2010
Posted by Jay Livingston
Do poor people make unwise decisions – decisions that may have caused their poverty, decisions that aggravate that hardship? In the thread of comments on the previous post, there was some speculation that many of the poor, perhaps even a majority, were making these kinds of bad choices, perhaps because they were ignorant or, more likely, because they lacked the proper virtues and because government welfare allowed them to do so. In any case, the argument continues, the Heritage Foundation has told us that the poor in America are well-housed, well-clothed, and well-fed.
Maybe it’s time to go back to Wal-Mart. Three months ago Bill Simon, the Wal-Mart CEO spoke at a Goldman-Sachs Retail Conference, and some of what he said got picked up in the popular press – NPR’s “Planet Money,” Salon, and elsewhere. He talked about
(Click on the graph for a larger view.)
Shortage of jobs was also two to four times more likely than these other causes to be voted as “not a cause of poverty.”
The survey was done in 2001. Perhaps the current high rates of unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, have changed perceptions about the poor and the causes of poverty (though probably not at the Heritage Foundation).
Posted by Jay Livingston
Do poor people make unwise decisions – decisions that may have caused their poverty, decisions that aggravate that hardship? In the thread of comments on the previous post, there was some speculation that many of the poor, perhaps even a majority, were making these kinds of bad choices, perhaps because they were ignorant or, more likely, because they lacked the proper virtues and because government welfare allowed them to do so. In any case, the argument continues, the Heritage Foundation has told us that the poor in America are well-housed, well-clothed, and well-fed.
Maybe it’s time to go back to Wal-Mart. Three months ago Bill Simon, the Wal-Mart CEO spoke at a Goldman-Sachs Retail Conference, and some of what he said got picked up in the popular press – NPR’s “Planet Money,” Salon, and elsewhere. He talked about
an ever-increasing amount of transactions being paid for with government assistance.This snapshot of Wal-Mart at midnight doesn’t quite fit with the widespread and tenacious the image of the poor as drug addicted, lazy, heedless spawners of children that they won’t even feed a bowl of cereal to in the morning, all supported by a cushy welfare system that subsidizes their profligate, unwise, and unvirtuous ways.
And you need not go further than one of our stores on midnight at the end of the month. And it's real interesting to watch, about 11 p.m., customers start to come in and shop, fill their grocery basket with basic items, baby formula, milk, bread, eggs, and continue to shop and mill about the store until midnight, when electronic -- government electronic benefits cards get activated and then the checkout starts and occurs. And our sales for those first few hours on the first of the month are substantially and significantly higher.
And if you really think about it, the only reason somebody gets out in the middle of the night and buys baby formula is that they need it, and they've been waiting for it. Otherwise, we are open 24 hours -- come at 5 a.m., come at 7 a.m., come at 10 a.m.
But if you are there at midnight, you are there for a reason.
(Click on the graph for a larger view.)Shortage of jobs was also two to four times more likely than these other causes to be voted as “not a cause of poverty.”
The survey was done in 2001. Perhaps the current high rates of unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, have changed perceptions about the poor and the causes of poverty (though probably not at the Heritage Foundation).
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