Category: sociology
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big government vs. little government
For all you fans of reducing government out there, maybe you should reconsider. This NYTimes article gives a good illustration of situations when small government doesn’t make sense. For years the government has allowed private companies to provide student loans at virtually no risk to the companies as the government insures the loans and provides…
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science is amazing!!!
Here’s a great NYTimes article this morning summarizing some recent genetic research on the origins of humans in Africa. We’ve known for quite some time that humans originated in Africa, but the current studies trace human ancestry to the southwest corner of Africa, something that had not been done before. That’s pretty cool. But even…
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breathing earth
A student found this site and showed it to me the other day: http://www.breathingearth.net/ Spend a few minutes perusing it. Disturbing.
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letter to the editor of the St. Petersburg Times
I caught this story a couple of days ago about a wealthy chiropractor trying to change Florida legislation on childhood vaccines. I was so annoyed by it that I wrote a letter to the editor of the St. Petersburg Times. They called yesterday to let me know they were going to publish it. Found it…
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age vs. cohort in voting behavior
I’m preparing a lecture for one of my classes in which we are discussing Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone. In the 2nd chapter on political participation he claims, “The distinction between intracohort and intercohort change is crucial to understanding what’s been happening to turnout in America over the last thirty years. Very little of the…
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Today’s Sunday School lesson is on “open-mindedness”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69TOuqaqXI
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Powerpoints
I’m not sure if anyone will be interested in these, but over the last couple of years I’ve put together a few powerpoint presentations that others may find useful. I’ve uploaded them all to a website that lets others view them online and download them. I’ve prepared presentations on each of the following books: Guns,…
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intriguing news items
I haven’t posted news articles in a while, but these two struck me as noteworthy. First, turns out the regulations of European countries during good economic times seem to have sheltered them from the current economic storm. Huh… I’m sure the greedy capitalist assholes who got us into this mess aren’t very happy about this…
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Debi returns; someone packages my work and sells a book with my name on it
Debi just returned to Florida from a weekend visit to Utah for a baby shower. She very much enjoyed the trip and the shower and loved seeing everyone. Lucky her, she returned when I was about half way through redoing our spare bathroom. We redid our master bathroom over our winter break. The spare bathroom…
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The Boston Globe calling…
I received an email from Michael Paulson, a religion reporter for The Boston Globe, yesterday asking me if I had time to talk about a new study coming out today. The study is the latest wave of the American Religious Identification Survey. Having worked with the principal investigators – Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar –…