HB, Representative Chisholm

On this day in 1924, Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm was born in Brooklyn (NY, US). Not just because she was one of those “firsts” (first Black woman elected to the US Congress), but because she was a strong advocate for many important groups (minorities, women, and children) and issues (education, reduced military spending), she deserves our recognition. Listen to her speak eloquently on some of these matters by jumping to The Visionary Project.

Link to the Wikipedia entry about Ms. Chisholm

HB Origin of the Species

Time for a reminder that today is the anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. As noted in previous years (2006, 2007, 2008), one can get a copy for free for the U.Va. Library.

Let’s talk about health care

I am very glad that the US Senate has agreed to have a public discussion of a plan to provide health care coverage for the citizens of the United States. As do many of my fellow citizens, I do not agree with each and every aspect of the current bill, but I am glad to have something that achieves important goals for my country.

If the USA is to be a world leader, we must ensure that our citizens are capable of accomplishing new, important tasks—inventing, creating, reproducing—and being healthy is a critical part of it. Moreover, ending exploitive actions by health insurance entities (today’s equivalent of Teddy Roosevelt’s trusts) will help the US be more competitive, too.

Give the US a sensible health-care policy, and it will be in a better position. Let’s have the debate. Let’s figure out how to make it a good policy, regardless of political affiliation.

71 jewel

On this day in 1960 Elgin Baylor of the Los Angeles Lakers scored 71 points in a National Basketball Association game against the New York Knicks, hitting 28 2-pointers and 15 free throws. The Lakers won 123-108 on the Knicks’ home floor, basketball mecca, Madison Square Garden.

As a pre-adolescent wanna-be basketball player who had recently moved to Los Angeles, these high-scoring events were markers. The previous year, Mr. Baylor had scored 64 points in a single game, but this 71 was something special. At the time it was, of course, the most points ever scored in an NBA game. Since then, only three players (Wilt Chamberlain, 5 times; Kobe Bryant and David Thompson once each) have ever scored more points in a game.

Later that season, I attended a game the Lakers played against the Syracuse Nationals and the great Dolph Schayes at Los Angeles State College, away from their usual home location of the LA Sports Arena. I remember the announcer introducing the starting line ups: “And, at forward, number 22, Elgin, 71-Jewel, Baylor.” I referred to the use of “jewel” in an Feb 2008 post about an article on Mr. Baylor’s career; this note serves as further explanation for that reference.

Links for the NBA’s player profile and the Hoopedia page about Mr. Baylor’s career. Link to my earlier post.

WordPress 4 iPhone

So, I downloaded this WP app for managing a blog from the iPhone, and this is my first test of it. Although many reviews on the iTunes app store reported concerns about the app, I haven’t encountered them.

I was able to connect on first try. I can navigate pretty readily. I’m experiencing no problems with comments.

To be sure, I would like to be able to use landscape for typing. Also, it would be nice to have a few common mark-up commands. At least I can type the raw commands…I trust.

Some Google fun

Google suggests searches as one types in the search box. An apparently rapidly-developing community of folks are playing with the feature. A site called “Question Suggestion” by Justin Talbott has been aggregating examples of some pretty wacky results for the since the spring of 2009.

Flash of the electrons to the ever-entertaining and -informative David Pogue for the post about this in his blog. See more from Mr. Talbott (check “nuclear power pants”; it’s a hoot).

KAJ deserves a statue

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—who played basketball, writes books, coaches basketball, and advocates for worthy public causes—has leukemia. Although Mr. Abdul-Jabbar has known he has chronic myeloid leukemia since December of 2008, he only revealed it publicly 9 November 2009. The diagnosis has apparently been confirmed by checking for the Philadelphia chromosome abnormality.

As a long-time admirer of Mr. Abdul-Jabbar (I remember going to see him play on the UCLA freshman team when they played a game at Pasadena City College), I am saddened by the news. To be sure, it’s oddly good news for those who have or who study chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia, as the disease suddenly has a much larger public profile. As my brother Frank noted, it will probably do for this form of leukemia what Magic Johnson’s and Lou Gerhig’s inflictions did for AIDS and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, respectively.

Apparently, I’m not alone in my admiration for Mr. Abdul-Jabbar. Broderick Turner, the reporter for the Los Angeles Times who reported about Mr. Abdul-Jabbar’s revelation that he has the disease, followed up that earlier story with a note about others’ expression of concerns.

Majorities and minorities

Ice cream by eye color	Yes	No
Blue	16	43
Brown	224	151

Suppose we asked a few more than 400 people whether they preferred strawberry ice cream over chocolate and, as they answered we also noted their eye color. If eye color was related to their preference, we’d see disproportionally more folks with one eye color saying “Yes.” In fact, the data might look something like those in the yellow table. Following the majority-rule concept, we’d conclude that people prefer strawberry to chocolate.

Of course, such a conclusion hides something pretty intriguing. The preference differs depending on the color of the respondents’ eyes. We might still agree that the majority prefers strawberry, but following the majority runs quite clearly counter to the interests of the minority, no? Why, we might wonder, is there this difference? Is there something to be learned from the minority?

Stupak-Pitts by gender	Yes	No
Female	16	43
Male	224	151

As far as tastes in ice cream, there’s probably not much of importance. However, the data in the table are not actually about ice cream preferences. I took those numbers from the vote by members of the US House of Representatives on the Stupak Amendment to HR 3962, the “Affordable Health Care for America Act.” Representative Bart Stupak (with Representative Joe Pitts) proposed an amendment that restricted coverage of abortions under the health care plan; insurance plans that are purchased with government subsidies may not cover abortions. That includes privately purchased health care insurance. The amendment passed with strong support from men, but not from women.

Over 70% of female representives, who may not be the minority in the population but are in the House of Representatives, voted against the Stupak-Pitts amendment (see blue table). Nearly 60% of male representatives voted in favor of it. It appears to me that those women must know something those men don’t know. More importantly, it appears to me that the majority’s decision has run counter to the expressed concern of the minority. ‘Majority rule’ is a good thing, but in our system it has to be accompanied by protection of the minority’s rights.

Now, the analogy to eye color doesn’t really fit well. One chooses neither her eye color nor gender, to be sure. However, requiring blue-eyed people to eat strawberry ice cream isn’t as much of a big deal as requiring women to live with laws restricting their access to health-care procedures.

I am sorry to report that our representative, Tom Perriello, was among the 224 men who voted to restrict insurance coverage for abortions.

Although one can find these data in a lot of places here is a source for them. In case there’s a statistically intrigued reader, the chi square of 21.94 with 1 degree of freedom is significant with a probability of 0.00000282. (I understand that the p value is not an index of the strength of the relationship.)

While I’m at it, here, please take a few minutes to see how some of the erstwhile debate about the health care legislation went.