U.S. Election Mega-analysis

Political pundits are second in line after the politicians themselves in putting spin on political poll data to make those data sound as if they support a particular interpretation. But there is another class of analysts who do not prognisticate. Instead, they simply examine the data and tell what those data show at this time.

Nate Silver of the New York (NY) Times has gotten a lot of publicity recently for his versions of this sort of work, but there are several others who are doing similar work (and to me, some are maybe even better, but let’s not argue about that right now). These people aggregate data from the polls (and, in many cases, other sources of evidence) to arrive at statistically dispassionate estimates of the situation. They don’t use hunches about momentum, ad-buys, and so forth. They follow the data.

Technology in the wild

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have wasps nest in the headphone jack of your computer? How about border guards questioning why you’re transporting a computer with a dead battery? Dolly Joseph doesn’t question why these things occur. She’s lived them, and she connects them in an enlightening post about technology and the environment. Recommended.

Be smart about ocean debris

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a blog about marine debris chocked full of interesting entries. As are many other agencies, NOAA is using social media extensively (e.g., see the Facebook page for its Office of Exploration and Research, the Vimeo shows for its Climate Program Office, and, of course, its own Twitter feed and weather information on its own YouTube channel), but the marine debris blog is a bit unique. It has a voice of its own. It’s focused, friendly, informative, and entertaining. It’s a good use of my tax dollars.

Players

Currently I’m reading The Big O and I recently I read West by West. Not long ago, I reported about reading The Rivalry and The Inside Game. So, to those who recognize the subjects of those books, it should come as no surprise that I enjoyed stumbling across this photo in Mr. Adbul-Jabars’ Twitter pix. These are four of the guys whom I’d want in my all-time seven- or eight-man rotation.

Talk about dying

Have you ever had someone close to you recognize that death is not just inevitable, but that it is likely to come in the nearer, rather than farther, future? I am close with some elderly people who have said to me “getting old is for the birds” and even “sometimes I wish I could just die.” We all know someone who’s a bit elderly. Perhaps it’s a parent or an uncle. Maybe it’s a neighbor who still lives alone independently, and you check on her.

I have several in my life (not counting myself). So, in July of 2011 I was quick to read a column by Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times entitled “Waiting in the dark with Dad.” In it he told about his elderly father taking a fall one night and his mother, unable to get the father up, waiting through the night with him until they could get to an emergency room.

For other folks, incurable and advancing disease rather than age may be the primary driver of impending death. Still, many of the end-of-life concerns are similar. What does one do to set things straight? How does one face the prospect of being a burden on others? Will there be pain and suffering? Which trip will be the last and how much fun can one wring out of it? Will that advance medical directive be honored? (My sister suggested she might have “Do Not Resuscitate” tattooed on her chest!)

After examining his own parents’ situation, Mr. Lopez has delved into the topic more broadly. The result has grown into a series of articles discussing divergent views of problems faced by elderly folks. Over the past few months I’ve passed along links to and discussed that first and several other columns by Mr. Lopez about his thoughts on his ailing father’s end-of-life situation. The Times has collected a dozen (as of today) of Mr. Lopez’s related columns and has them displayed together under the headline “Matters of life & death.”

Meanwhile, it’s great to have palliative care programs such as Hospice (ask your doctors and nurses) and support services via Family Caregiver Alliance (search “end-of-life care”; it’s a US org, but I imagine there are comparable or better orgs in other countries) and Compassion in Dying (also mentioned in one of Mr. Lopez’s columns). This dying stuff is worth discussing. Thanks to Mr. Lopez for talking about it.

I hope you read all the articles, but I recommend you start with the one about Mr. Lopez’s mother waiting in the dark with his father.

Hyperbolic simple dog

Allie Brosh’s simple dog recently went very far outside. Follow her. You’ll get a good look at an adventure, an investigation of a dog’s perspective about the world, and insights into lots of other things, too.

My simple-minded dog recently went on an unplanned adventure. Because the simple dog is so very simple, her adventure was alarming and horrible for everyone involved.

Even in her normal, familiar environment, the simple dog exists in a state of almost constant confusion.

I reverse a position on religion and politics

I read with interest Damon Linker’s column in the Washington Post on Sunday 19 September 2010, “A religious test all our political candidates should take.” Given my resistence to mixing political and religious views, my first reaction when I read the headline was to disagree. After all, I know quite well that Article VI of the US Constitution very plainly states that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification [for] any office or public trust under the United States.”

Read ‘Hyperbole and a Half’

Over on Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh has some marvelous stuff. She tickles my fancy with irreverent commentaries spiced with quick cartoons. Here’s a brief list of some of my recent faves:

• A report about her not death experience;
• A lampoon of the misspelling of the phrase ‘a lot’;
• Her saga about the death of the Easter Bunny

She’s so ‘ffin’ good she has a store! And, she’s very productive. She’s so ‘ffin’ good she has a store! Bookmark this: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/.

Barbash on Mexico

Writing in City Journal, Shepard Barbash has published piece entitled, “Helping Mexico Help Itself: A more prosperous, democratic southern neighbor would reduce crime and illegal immigration,” that I found quite informative. It’s a story about education, drugs, immigration, economic disparities, political corruption, and lots more, and it’s a story that helped me understand those issues in a much more nuanced and integrated way than I had understood them from my careless monitoring of day-to-day news. Mr. Barbash, who served as chief of the Houston Chronicle’s bureau in Mexico City and has written books about Mexico, began his essay in this way:

Two crises have deepened America’s anxieties over immigration since Congress tried to reform the law two years ago: the global recession and an outburst of murder and mayhem in northern Mexico. The recession has aroused antipathy for foreigners who compete for jobs. The violence along the border, which stems from a high-stakes campaign by Mexican president Felipe Calderón to bust apart several large drug cartels, has inflamed fears that our borders aren’t secure.

Highly recommend reading: “Helping Mexico Help Itself: A more prosperous, democratic southern neighbor would reduce crime and illegal immigration.”

George’s Big Necessity

In The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Wast and Why it Matters, Rose George reports about excrement and the importance of addressing how we treat it. The topic is obviously a critical one for humankind, as it involves something that’s common (we all excrete) and poses a substantial threat to our own and our environment’s health.

With a reporter’s skill, Ms. George shows the way through sewers, robotic toilets, cess pools, long-drop latrines, fields, and many other places where excrement goes. She brings wit and detail to the descriptions. She starts with some terrible stories:

A gram of feces can contain 10 million viruses, 1 million bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts, and 100 worm eggs…. One sanitation specialist has estimated that people who live in areas with inadequate sanitation ingest 10 grams of fecal matter a day…. Diarrhea—nearly 90 percent of which is caused by fecally contaminated food or water—kills a child every fifteen seconds. (p. 2)

Throughout, she makes clear the tremendous importance of having the world come to grips with ways of managing sanitation. In many areas of the world, regardless of borders, people have adequate sanitation, but in other areas people simply defecate in fields designated for such. Even in the places where sanitation is better, the capacity of systems is often strained and poses an enormous threat to public health and safety; imagine what terror could be wrecked on a city if a few carefully placed explosives caused sewage to run in the streets.

The more people there are, the more substantial is the problem. So, it’s no surprise that Ms. George devotes chapters to China and India, two countries where conditions range from sanitary to shitty. In those places, as well as others, there are methods for improving sanitation that are championed messianically by some. They appear to have relatively local effects. But there are still people in this region of the galaxy who eke out livings carrying excrement away from others’ houses, and there are still millions of people practicing open defecation.

Of course, the task of dealing with waste is not just about excrement. There are all the other things that humans put into the waste stream, including the hand lotion that we wash off our hands when, as Ms. George notes, our hands grow dry because we wash our hands after we use the toilet. Substances from hand lotions, motors, and kitchens form solidified FOG (fat, oil, and grease). FOG blocks flow, and flow is necessary to keep excrement moving.

So, what’s to done? Well, that’s where Ms. George’s book seems to stop short. She examines some ideas and shows why they are untenable. But, her extensive study does not lead her to propose policies that will address the threats posed by our regular eliminations. I’m hoping for another book that presents systematic plans for sanitation.

George, R. (2008). The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why it Matters. New York: Metropolitan.