Design for the other 90%

In NYC last weekend, two friends and I saw Design for the Other 90%, an exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt Museum. The exhibit showcases equipment and machinery specifically developed for the global poor who lack access to electricity, building materials, clean water, etc. It's a small exhibit with roughly 30 items, on display through September 23. Because of the exhibit's size (it took just an hour to walk through), I'd say it's not worth the $12 ($9 for students) ticket price. I'm not even sure any of that money goes toward projects in the developing world. So save your money and read about these incredible items in the International Herald Tribune or the New York Times.

We're beginning to close the "10-90 gap" in medical research, which I've written about before, where 90 percent of funds go toward just 10 percent of the world's burden of disease. In design, the disparity is similar, seeing how 90% of world's population can't use the products sold at IKEA. So, kudos to this exhibit for bringing together the teams that are fighting this imbalance.

Picture-taking was allowed, so here's what we saw:


The LifeStraw (above) was by far my favorite. It's a water purification device used in Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan and Uganda that removes particles to reduce the risk of infection by waterborne diseases such as cholera, diarrhea, dysentery and typhoid. So brilliant and yet so simple.

I also really liked the Q-Drum (below), an easily roll-able container that can hold 75 liters of water.


If you're in India, Nepal, Zambia, or Zimbabwe, look out for this drip irrigation system (below). It reduces water use by 30-70 percent while increasing yields by more than 50 percent. It can used for many kinds of products that come out of the earth, including fruits, vegetables, maize, wheat, and cotton. Also in the irrigation category, the exhibit included a "Super MoneyMaker Pump" (catchy name, eh?). Used in dozens of African countries, it can direct water without fuel or electricity and can irrigate a two-acre area in eight hours (which I assume is pretty good).

Zinn on 'inadvertent' killing

This letter to the editor is one of the best I've seen. Howard Zinn tackles what ethicists, following Catholic tradition, have come to call 'the principle of double effect.' The principle states that one may cause (minor) harm in the pursuit of doing (a larger) good, if the harm itself is not intended. In such a case, the harm is considered merely the unfortunate but necessary side effect (or "double effect") of the overall good act. Wikipedia aptly sums up the principle's other caveats. Zinn, responding to an essay by noted genocide scholar Samatha Power, argues that this often-cited idea doesn't excuse the killing of civilians during war simply because their deaths are inadvertent.

To the Editor:

Samantha Power has done extraordinary work in chronicling the genocides of our time, and in exposing how the Western powers were complicit by their inaction.

However, in her review of four books on terrorism, especially Talal Asad’s “On Suicide Bombing” (July 29), she claims a moral distinction between “inadvertent” killing of civilians in bombings and “deliberate” targeting of civilians in suicide attacks. Her position is not only illogical, but (against her intention, I believe) makes it easier to justify such bombings.

She believes that “there is a moral difference between setting out to destroy as many civilians as possible and killing civilians unintentionally and reluctantly in pursuit of a military objective.” Of course, there’s a difference, but is there a “moral” difference? That is, can you say one action is more reprehensible than the other?

In countless news briefings, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, responding to reporters’ questions about civilian deaths in bombing, would say those deaths were “unintentional” or “inadvertent” or “accidental,” as if that disposed of the problem. In the Vietnam War, the massive deaths of civilians by bombing were justified in the same way by Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon and various generals.

These words are misleading because they assume an action is either “deliberate” or “unintentional.” There is something in between, for which the word is “inevitable.” If you engage in an action, like aerial bombing, in which you cannot possibly distinguish between combatants and civilians (as a former Air Force bombardier, I will attest to that), the deaths of civilians are inevitable, even if not “intentional.” Does that difference exonerate you morally?

The terrorism of the suicide bomber and the terrorism of aerial bombardment are indeed morally equivalent. To say otherwise (as either side might) is to give one moral superiority over the other, and thus serve to perpetuate the horrors of our time.

Howard Zinn
Auburndale, Mass.

The future with a capital F

I don’t usually post about my feelings, but here’s a go.

I feel exasperated. Socially, I’m steady (though some romance wouldn't hurt). Financially, I’m stable. And I have a wonderful job that provides me with challenging work and close mentorship.

But don’t ask about the big picture. In the last day alone, I’ve read or skimmed articles on HPV vaccination, US incarceration reform, health policy impacts of climate change, WTO agreements on pharmaceutical patents, and the very idea of distributive justice. I’ve been reading about conscientious objection in health care and about PhRMA's absurd influence. It's all worthy of study. So I'm left overwhelmed and bewildered, not knowing what to do with my life. Should I work abroad? How? Should I apply for a MPH? For a PhD? In what? I know that too much emphasis on the future can make for a less happy present, but I can't help but wonder where I'll be in a year.

As an undergrad, I was perhaps too specialized, taking small seminars on obscure topics. I loved them for their long papers, good discussion, and faculty contact. Now I have the opposite problem - I'm not specialized enough. As I peruse websites of various social justice organizations, obsessed by The Future, it seems I'm interested in everything but qualified for nothing. Perhaps I overstate the case – people are more aware of what they lack than what they have, and I guess that includes me. But still, I speak no relevant languages, have no engineering skills, have no clinical skills, etc.

An analogy: In organizing the small seminars, professors faced the age-old question of fair resource distribution. In this case the limited resource was class enrollment. Some professors tried to spook the crowd by requiring long papers; others scheduled the class for undesirable times; some resorted to a lottery; some judged by a writing sample; some asked, simply, “Why should I let you in? State your case.” This last method was my favorite, as I could usually make the cut. And my neat handwriting probably helped. But it did inspire a joke among students, with its kernel of truth: The best way to get into a course is to have taken it already. And so it is with careers.

Mrs. and Mr. Laura Bush

Big news for people who treat politicians like celebrities: Jenna Bush is engaged.

Here's the White House Press Release:

President and Mrs. George W. Bush are happy to announce the engagement of their daughter, Jenna Bush, to Mr. Henry Hager, son of the Honorable and Mrs. John H. Hager of Richmond, Virginia.

Wait a sec... Do the women have names?

From the river to the sea

There's not a lot that the religious Jewish Zionists and I agree on, but there is one thing: We both like imagine a world where there's only one state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Granted, the religious Zionists want a Jewish theocracy while I dream of a liberal democracy. But in any case, a single state is simply not going to happen. Israelis and Palestinians hate each other with such vehemence that they'll never be compatriots. Proponents of a "one-state solution" are steeped in fantasy, full of folly, and even a bit fanatical. Their ideas are best suited to late-night "what ifs" and not to the realpolitik of public policy.

I gave up on the one-state idea almost as soon as I considered it. But I have not relented on a different point: If Israelis and Palestinians will never be kinsfolk, then they at least ought to promise full rights to the inhabitants of their respective countries. Unfortunately, neither state is willing to do that. Israel deludes itself by claiming to be "Jewish democracy," as if such a thing could exist. It discriminates against non-Jews not only in its controversial Law of Return, but also in its allocation of government funds between Jewish and Arab locales. Palestine, on the other hand, treats its citizens no better. Both Fatah and Hamas jail their political opponents, as if citizenship and party membership were the same thing. I don't want a "Jewish democracy" or an "Arab democracy" - or some other euphemism to mask an ethnically supremacist state.

My view has critics, of course, such as Gadi Taub, a Hebrew U professor, whose essay, "Liberalism, Democracy, and the Jewish State," appeared in last week's Chronicle Review:

Ever since the late 18th century, blindness to their own strong nationalism has led many Americans to believe that imposing the American Way on others is tantamount to liberating them. ... It may be noble of such writers to shoulder what was once called the White Man's Burden, and take it upon themselves to teach the natives the right form of self-determination. But from the point of view of the natives, that does not seem like a way to promote democracy. It seems more like an assault on self-determination with a liberal accent.

Taub espouses some terrible delusions. After the work of Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling, I thought no serious Israeli professor of public policy would be so naive as to call Israel a "liberal democracy," but apparently I was wrong. Or perhaps Taub is carrying on the great Zionist tradition of hiding its blunders from the rest of the world simply by ignoring them and hoping everyone does too. But he does manage to offer some criticism of my support for an American-style democracy in the Middle East, where rights are conferred through citizenship and not through culture. His message (and the message of defenders of the status quo) is: You can't impose your democracy on us. Self-determination comes in many forms, damnit, so quit the imperialist edge.

But Taub's argument is a weak one. If the Israelis or Palestinians really believed his argument, then they would stop taking American foreign aid. Okay, money is alluring and it's hard to really fault them for that. But his argument fails for another reason: Taub and his comrades can't seem to attack what we say, just that we say it - the critical thinking skills of an immature brat.

Two kinds of racism

This story is appalling but hardly surprising.

My young daughter needed to go to the toilet during a shopping trip in London during the last school holidays. While I stood next to the hand basins waiting for her, a woman came out of one of the cubicles and as she washed her hands, looked up and admonished me in no uncertain terms for the poor job I had done in keeping the toilets clean. Speechless, I watched her storm out. I am not an indolent cleaner; but I am Black, of African descent, and an Australian national. My daughter, having overheard, asked why I had not explained that I was a professor. But why do I have to? And more importantly, how do I explain to my 11-year-old that being part African, in countries like the UK, she needs to prepare for the fact that as a result of lazy cognitive stereotyping, not only will her colour be the primary “marker” by which she will be identified, but also that with that identity comes a whole range of prejudices about her status and ability? (emphasis added)

So writes Pascale Allotey in discussing the impact of ethnicity on access to medical care (The Lancet. Vol. 370, no. 9586, 11 August 2007). In her piece, Allotey tries to bridge two forms of racism: (1) racial prejudice (what most people take as constituting "racism") and (2) the more subtle, more entrenched, more noxious structural form - a potent mix of poverty, poor health, and lack of political power. Sometimes it's hard to discern a connection between the two kinds. People of any race can harbor prejudice, while "structural racism" tends to afflict only certain groups. I wonder if the connection is overstated, seeing how people emphasize the first kind in order to spice up the second. As a professor, Allotey suffers most directly from the first kind, not from the second. Racial prejudice garners more media attention simply because it's easier to understand. Type #2, by contrast, is a complicated concoction of race and class.

For a statistical account of structural racism, see this widely-cited article that makes John Edwards courageous exposition on "two Americas" seem weak: Murray CJL, et al. (2006) Eight Americas: Investigating Mortality Disparities across Races, Counties, and Race-Counties in the United States. PLoS Med 3(9): e260. The authors "estimated life expectancy, the risk of mortality from specific diseases, health insurance, and health-care utilization for the eight Americas," and found that "[t]he gap between the highest and lowest life expectancies for race-county combinations in the United States is over 35 y." Wow, indeed.

Update: An example of racial prejudice might be: black men are more likely than white men to receive a harsher sentence for the same crime. An example of structural racism might be: black men are more likely than white men to engage in crime in the first place.

Burqa, bikini, and habit

Will the real feminist please stand up?

That was my first thought upon seeing the cover of last week's New Yorker (July 30):


The painting, by Anita Kunz, is called “Girls Will Be Girls.” A discussion at The BAG blog offered a few insights, though just a few. Some thought the woman in the middle was Jewish (though none had the chutzpa to call her a JAP). Others thought the painting had a Harry Potter message (those maniacs will find Harry Potter in anything!). I took the image as a commentary on feminism, with the artist suggesting that none of the women had any more (or any less) of a claim to being a feminist than any other. Sitting side-by-side at exactly the same height, they're equals.

One person had this take, suggesting that none of the women are feminists:

If we assuem the two 'girls' on the flanks are covering up to please 'Men' you can just as safely assume that the one in the middle is revealing her flanks to please 'Men' as well. ... There's no question in my mind that Patriarchal culture has shaped both of these fashion extremes.

Another suggested that the image may not make a feminist point at all:

This cover would also work with men as the subject: One man dressed as a terrorist, on the other side a man dressed in a suit and televangelist hair-do as a fundamentalist christian preacher and a man in the middle in sunglasses, flip flops and swim trunks.

I spent a long time staring at this picture, trying to figure out what bothered me about it. Suddenly it was obvious: the burqa, the bikini, and the habit seem to emphasize that these three New Yorkers are terribly different, but they actually suggest the opposite. All three women are hiding behind something, including the middle one who seems to bare all, yet who sits with crossed legs and crossed arms and big sun-glasses. She hiding, too - a point that's emphasized, I think, by the color of her bikini top. There's both similarity and symmetry in what these women are wearing.

Shortly before I saw the New Yorker, I read about a study “Hidden in Plain Sight: Sexual Harassment and Assault in the New York City Subway System” (25-page PDF), that found that nearly 2/3 of the 1800 respondents reported have been harassed on the Subway. The value of this survey is diminished somewhat because the sampling was not randomized. Instead, the respondents had to elect to take the online survey, which probably explains why 2/3 of them were women. Still, it'd be naive to deny that sexual harassment exists below the streets of New York City. The phenomenon's been reported before. So I saw Kunz's painting through this lens, too: Three women, with their obvious differences, seeking solidarity on a Subway bench.

100th post!

Hurray!

Thanks to all the readers who make my blogging worthwhile. Please feel free to drop a note!

To mark the occasion, I went to Rate My Blog, a service that evaluates websites with a rating in the style of the Motion Picture Association of America. I am pleased to announce that my blog is rated:

That's right. Don't read my blog without being accompanied by a parent or adult guardian.

Why? I offend by using the following words: sex (6x), dead (4x), shoot (2x), kill (1x), and quite a few others. It seems silly to rate a blog simply for the presence of "dirty words." Shouldn't it matter how they're used? Then again, Rate My Blog is just a silly website that's best used for giggles - and to mark celebratory occasions. I don't know if blogging in the long-run is a worthwhile endeavor, but for now, I enjoy it. It keeps me curious about the world. Thanks for checking in.

Battle for Bolivia

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is lending a hand (i.e., giving money) to the new Bolivian President Evo Morales. Of course, there's a back story: the money used to come from Washington.

The Washington Post reports:

After two decades of reliance on the economic prescriptions of the United States, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Bolivia has turned left, embracing Venezuelan and Cuban aid, nationalizing industries and championing what its leaders call a pragmatic version of socialism. Bolivia's break from Washington is part of a regional trend underwritten by Chávez, who has lavished aid on allies to roll back the influence of the United States and Washington-based institutions that have long shaped Latin America's development. In the past two years, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Argentina and Ecuador have used Venezuelan aid to pay off their debts to the IMF or allow credit agreements to lapse.

The article notes that IMF lending to Latin America and the Caribbean has declined from $49 billion in 2003 to $759 million last year. That's an astronomical decrease! In its stead, aid from Chávez has helped Bolivia avoid debt to the IMF - a good thing. Granted much of that debt may simply have been forgiven in a long-run, a seemingly generous act from the powers that be (World Bank, IMF, etc.) which probably recognize that it never would have been repaid anyway.

Though the IMF would deny it, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina and Nicaragua have done quite poorly (the people are still poor, after all) with U.S.-brand economics. One could argue that these countries weren't doing it right, but maybe it's simply time to try something new. What's interesting to me is how these economic decisions are interpreted as ideological shifts. People who work in Washington are prone to assess any development in Latin America in light of the burgeoning U.S.-Venezuela rivalry. But is that the right framework? Are the war-mongers co-opting the news?

The prison industry goes truckin'

What industry buys and sells the captivity of human beings?

Incarceration, of course.

The NYT reports that many states are looking beyond their borders to relieve their overcrowded prisons. The U.S. prison and jail population reached 2.2 million in July 2006, a 2.8 percent growth in just twelve months. Since states can't build new prisons fast enough (and since they're not creative enough to come up with alternatives to incarceration), some have taken to exporting inmates to private and public prisons in other states. Today, 1,300 Alabamans are serving in Louisiana, 360 Californians are serving in Arizona and Tennessee, and 2,000 Hawaiians, are serving in Arizona, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Kentucky. See this map from the NYT, at left, for a sense of the zig-zag wanderings

That doesn't make family visits easy. Even states that keep their prisoners within their borders fall short. More than 60 percent of state inmates reside in prisons more than 100 miles from where they last lived. Some men I tutor used to live in New York City. The 10-hour round-trip journey for family members to visit costs $122 on Greyhound and even more on Amtrak. If states want to rehabilitate prisoners, they must do more to ensure that inmates get committed locally. Recidivism studies show that "convicts who keep in touch with family members through visits and phone privileges are less likely to violate their parole or commit new offenses" (NYT).

The relocations are not only far, but frequent. Consider the experience of Eli Coates, a 26-year-old inmate from Arizona, interviewed by the NYT. Coates is serving 10 years for armed robbery, and traveled through six prisons in Arizona and one in Oklahoma before arriving at a prison in Indiana, where he is today. "I was on my way to being able to finish a college program and vocational programs to get a trade," Mr. Coates said. "But they snatched me up from those opportunities, and here I have to start all over again." Besides educational and vocations programs, relocations disrupt health care, drug rehabilitation, and telephone privileges, which can take six months to reclaim. Relocations also spell discontent: A riot at an Indiana prison in Indiana last April was instigated by disgruntled inmates from Arizona. And why shouldn't they be disgruntled?

For other incarceration-related news, see this news round-up.

Russo's Risk Pool

Richard Russo's The Risk Pool follows Ned Hall, the only child of two estranged parents, from childhood to early adulthood. The book is a fictional first-person memoir that recounts Ned's years growing up in Mohawk, a blue-collar town in upstate NY. It's a marvelous story - engrossing and irresistible and all of the other descriptors you'll see on the back cover. Time and again, I would read another 20 pages after deciding I was done for the night - not because I needed to wrap up a cliff-hanger or an action scene, but because every place to stop was no better than any other. Russo tells the story of everyday life fluidly. The book's sole fault, in my view, is in devoting two hundred pages to Ned's first decade of life - a time devoid of love, lust, independence, and for Ned, ambition.

Growing up isn't easy for Ned, considering his mother's a lunatic and his father's a drunk. In their shadow, Ned becomes a quiet reflective introvert - a grad school drop-out-turned writer - who finds little companionship among his peers. Still, Ned's coming of age is not so unique as to defy analogy. His observations resonated with me. In his youth, Ned found few things “so curious as the mystery of how anybody could be Jack Ward and not live happily ever after." But an older Ned acknowledges that "despite living through the war, marrying a rich woman, fathering a beautiful daughter, living in the while jewel house, driving the big Lincoln, and dying in the saddle, Jack Ward had not been happy” (248).

Russo is entertaining and sharp, but especially clever. In describing Ned's mother, an obsessive woman who managed her money meticulously, Russo writes: “She always congratulated herself on the fact that she had absolutely nothing to worry about, and wouldn’t have, so long as she continued to worry all the time” (214). Sometimes, amid the cleverness, shines a simple peril of wisdom, distinguished strangely by its mundane nature. As Ned says, “there are few things better than riding a bike after a long winter. A bicycle promises spring as surely as the hollowing out of melting snowbanks, the return of songbirds, the first bright tulip bud” (233).

Ned's relationship with his father Sam Hall matures over the decades. For much of his life, there was no telling when Ned would see his father, who swooped in-and-out of town. After one good-bye, Ned relates in a steady tone, “I didn’t see him again for ten years, nor did I ever hear a word concerning his whereabouts. Not a letter, not a Christmas card” (268). As a kid, Ned is scared to approach his dad. "As usual," Ned says, "everybody seemed to know my father better than I did, and I always ended up feeling like an outsider" (101). As he spend more time with Sam Hall later in life, Ned begins to worry he shares too many of his father's poor habits (458). Not wanting his girlfriend to see any resemblance between Ned and his father, Ned keeps the two apart. Russo crafts a character who loves and reveres his father and visits him regularly, yet in his heart of hearts, knows he's terribly “afraid he [his father] would live to be a hundred” (458).

Perhaps I've quoted enough, but I want to conclude with one more quotation - my favorite in the book - where Ned reflects on his budding relationship with Jack Ward's beautiful daughter, Tria.

“Paradoxically, even though I doubted that Tria Ward felt much attraction, I began to be uncharacteristically certain that before long she would extend me the invitation. Such arrogance, I hasten to add, was far from customary. In my relations with other young women to this point in my life, I had always been rather pessimistic about my prospects, a circumstance born of experience. I’d been told that I struck most girls as gloomy, and at the university one honest sorority girl I had badgered about going out said that she had nothing against me personally, except that when she went out with a guy, like, she preferred to have a good time, you know? I knew. Perhaps I was confident about Tria because I was beginning to suspect that she was not the sort of girl who preferred to have a good time” (354).

Movie theater ethics

Is it ethical to steal from the rich to give to the poor?

Well, that's what I just did. I saw Michael Moore's Sicko last weekend. I had planned to review the film, but ya know what, it's been reviewed countless times already. For a positive take, see Krugman; for a negative take, see the National Review; for a sarcastic take, see the blog Paragon). For CNN's fact-checking, go here. I think that covers everything. Now for the juice.

In the theater, Jen and I staked out four seats. We were waiting on Ezra and Logan, who would be coming shortly, though not together. I had a ticket for Logan, as previously agreed, but not for Ezra. I thought maybe he had purchased his own. Logan hadn't arrived yet - so I held his ticket. Ezra, as it turned out, he had not yet purchased a ticket. He was simply running late. When I met Logan at the gate, Ezra informed us that the show had sold out. So there we were, on different sides of the red cord, a chasm between us. Nothing could be done, or so it seemed. Entering the cinema with Logan, I showed my ticket-stub to the ticket-checker. But when Logan tried to hand over his ticket, the checker assumed Logan also had a ticket stub and waved him through. Suddenly there we were, through the gate, with an unripped ticket! Incredible! I sent Logan on, left the gated area once more, and handed Ezra the ticket I had bought for Logan. And on we went.

Ethical?

Well, Ezra may have taken a seat that a paying movie-goer would have taken, especially since the movie was sold out. True, but two comments. First, a theater doesn't actually fill every seat when it "sells out." I'm not sure why, but it doesn't. In fact, there were several other unfilled seats. Second, Jen and I had saved a seat for Ezra since our early arrival. Saving a seat for a friend is surely permissible, especially since I had done so with the understanding that Ezra would actually buy a ticket. I think the ethics deal less with fellow movie-goers and more with the business. Someone might claim that since the movie had sold out, the theater hadn't lost anything. But Ezra may have returned to see the movie and paid the ticket price then. In that case, not only does the theater lose out, so does Michael Moore - each according to their cut of the ticket price.

I would bet that those who think it's okay to enter the theater without paying find the following reason most compelling: "I mean, the movie was playing anyway, right?" That's tempting. But to see how it fails, think of the city bus. Sure it travels even if someone doesn't pay. But the rider is financially accountable to the business, which must sell tickets to sustain itself. Not paying is tantamount to stealing. Of course, it's not so simple. It was the ticket guy, after all, who missed Logan's ticket. It's not like we sneaked in through the back door. Well, no. Our act was intentional, if not premeditated. If the cashier forgets to ring something up, the buyer should speak up - with movie tickets as with milk. Bottom line: taking without paying - nevermind the details - is theft.

We debated this conundrum after the movie. It was an odd conversation, meandering between the ethics of movie tickets and the disaster of our health care system. It felt silly to be worrying about that $7 ticket when there were larger problems to discuss. But I felt at least that this $7 riddle was something we could solve. Both Logan and Ezra acquiesced to my puritanical drive - annoying as it must have been - and forked over the $7 ticket price. With $7 in hand, I got up to purchase a ticket for the Monday morning showing of Sicko - when it was sure not to be sold out - to compensate for our unsanctioned viewing. But in the shadow of the box office, as I stood amidst Harry-Potter-mania, the thought of buying a ticket in order to rip it up, all to enrich the rich and empower the powerful, struck me as nothing short of absurd. Strangely, for once in my life, it was pertinent to say, paraphrasing Voltaire: Don't let the ethical become the enemy of the good.

So we gave that $7 to the Rescue Mission. Yes?

The (d)evolution of privacy

I gave blood this morning, something I've written about in the past.

In the interview, the Red Cross worker asked matter-of-factly for my social security number, address, phone number, health status, and other identifying info.

Then, "if you don't mind my asking," she asked for my sex.

What a world we live in.

Why people steal

Fellow blogger ZT posts this story from the Washington Post:

A grand feast of marinated steaks and jumbo shrimp was winding down, and a group of friends was sitting on the back patio of a Capitol Hill home, sipping red wine. Suddenly, a hooded man slid in through an open gate and put the barrel of a handgun to the head of a 14-year-old guest.

"Give me your money, or I'll start shooting," he demanded, according to D.C. police and witness accounts.

The five other guests, including the girls' parents, froze -- and then one spoke.

"We were just finishing dinner," Cristina "Cha Cha" Rowan, 43, blurted out. "Why don't you have a glass of wine with us?"

The intruder took a sip of their Chateau Malescot St-Exupéry and said, "Damn, that's good wine."

The girl's father, Michael Rabdau, 51, who described the harrowing evening in an interview, told the intruder, described as being in his 20s, to take the whole glass. Rowan offered him the bottle. The would-be robber, his hood now down, took another sip and had a bite of Camembert cheese that was on the table.

Then he tucked the gun into the pocket of his nylon sweatpants.

"I think I may have come to the wrong house," he said, looking around the patio of the home in the 1300 block of Constitution Avenue NE.

"I'm sorry," he told the group. "Can I get a hug?"

Some took the story as one of love triumphing over evil. But that's too theological to be correct. I think about it in the context of prison work. After all, if this guy is caught, he could face ten years in the slammer - probably in a max-security. In Soul on Ice, (New York: Dell, 1968, p. 58), former prisoner (and revolutionary-turned-Republican) Eldridge Cleaver put it this way:

One thing that the judges, policemen, and administrators of prisons seem never to have understood, and for which they certainly do not make allowances, is that Negro convicts, basically, rather than see themselves as criminals and perpetrators of misdeeds, look upon themselves as prisoners of war, the victims of a vicious, dog-eat-dog social system that is so heinous as to cancel out their own malefactions... Rather than owning and paying a debt to society, Negro prisoners feel that they are being abused, that their imprisonment is simply another form of the oppression which they have know all their lives. Negro inmates feel that they are being robbed, that it is 'society' that owes them, that should be paying them, a debt. [Quoted in Ted Conover's Newjack, New York: Random House, 2000, p. 207]

The Washington Post didn't identify the attacker's skin color. But the point holds. Those who feel marginalized - whether by their race or their poverty or whatever - believe that they owe nothing to society. In fact, society owes them. And if society won't cough it up, they'll simply take it.

Thus, inviting the would-be robber to partake in that everlasting symbol of privilege - a glass of red wine - mollified his criminal intention. It deprived him of his motive, which was not just to enrich himself, but to be counted and recognized. It makes perfect sense that he asked for a hug. Sharing their feast of plenty, he felt like one of them. As the Washington Post reports, "In the alley behind the home, investigators found the intruder's empty crystal wine glass on the ground, unbroken."

Health insurance myths

In his NYT column today, Paul Krugman debunks the hip replacement myth:

[I]t’s true that Americans get hip replacements faster than Canadians. But there’s a funny thing about that example, which is used constantly as an argument for the superiority of private health insurance over a government-run system: the large majority of hip replacements in the United States are paid for by, um, Medicare.

That’s right: the hip-replacement gap is actually a comparison of two government health insurance systems. American Medicare has shorter waits than Canadian Medicare (yes, that’s what they call their system) because it has more lavish funding — end of story. The alleged virtues of private insurance have nothing to do with it.

Here (via the White House) is what President Bush said about universal coverage last week:

“I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.”

Like this one, Mr. Bush?

Reasoning from the gut

William Saletan at Slate weighs in on the liberal-conservative question:

I have problems with liberals. A lot of them talk about religion as though it's a communicable disease. Some are amazingly obtuse to other people's qualms. They show no more interest in an embryo than in a skin cell. ... At most liberal bioethics conferences, the main question in dispute, in one form or another, is whether to be more afraid of capitalism or religion. I also hate the word progressive. It manages to be arrogant and meaningless at the same time, as though anything the left wants to do is a good idea. I suppose it's no more arrogant than values, the Republican buzzword for whatever conservatives want to do.

Eventually, though, Saletan sides with the liberals. He criticizes conservatives for being too dogmatic about questions of right and wrong, or appealing to what bioethicist Leon Kass calls "the wisdom of repugnance." Regarding the prospect of human cloning, Kass writes that "repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power fully to articulate it. Can anyone really give an argument fully adequate to the horror which is father-daughter incest (even with consent), or having sex with animals, or mutilating a corpse, or eating human flesh, or even just (just!) raping or murdering another human being?" It's not "what do you think," but rather "how do you feel?" Kass concludes, powerfully, "Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder."

I don't find "the wisdom of repugnance" compelling. Neither does Saletan, nor my former professor Felicia Nimue Ackerman, who replied: "Narrow are the souls that cannot comprehend that different souls shudder at different things." This "wisdom of repugnance" jettisons argument and relies more-or-less on gut-level reasoning. It is no way to discuss public policy in a shared society. But I don't think gut-level reasoning is merely a conservative phenomenon. Liberals and conservatives alike appeal to the gut. Vegans do it in their "arguments" for animal independence. Liberal bioethicist Linda MacDonald Glenn does it in discussing enhancement technologies, such as in the use of prenatal genetic diagnosis (PGD) to create smarter, stronger children. She writes: “To try and strive to have a perfect race—that’s a very scary thought.” In fact, nearly everyone discussing enhancement seems nuts about the idea. I see titles like: "New Breeds of Humans: The Moral Obligation to Enhance" (J. Savulescu) and "Our Posthuman Future" (F. Fukuyama).

Now I don't want to eschew gut-level reasoning altogether. Most of us, I imagine, would rush to save a drowning child (as the classic example goes) not because we feel the moral law devolving upon us (thank you, Mr. Kant) or because a quick calculus finds the child's life to be worth more than my pants (thank you, Mr. Singer). Instead, standing on the lake-side, we feel something in our gut that compels us to perceive and seek to end the suffering of another person.

Wise are the souls that understand that ethics neither ignores, nor ends at, the gut.

An Iraqi in Baghdad

An Iraqi reporter for the New York Times in Baghdad, Khalid W. Hassan (pictured), was killed earlier today on his way to work. On this page, colleagues at the Baghdad bureau shared memories. He was 23 years old and set to get married this fall. He was supporting his mother and three younger sisters, whom he had moved into a more expensive apartment after their previous apartment was destroyed in a truck bombing a few months ago. Khalid's father, a Sunni Arab, was shot by Sunni gunmen last fall “for the crime of taking a car ride with an acquaintance who happened to be Shiite.”

Who shot “this heavyset, pranksterish 23-year-old”? Why?


The NYT: “The murderous turmoil in Baghdad has reached a point where many families never know the killers of their loved ones, or their motives. Sunni insurgents? Shiite militias? Killers who mimic one or the other, while pursuing more private motives of greed, spite or revenge?”

Reporter Paul von Zielbauer recalled this story about Khalid Hassan:

I remember walking with him to a hotel next door, to interview an Iraqi woman about an article I was researching on love affairs in Baghdad. Khalid had eagerly put himself forth as a leading expert on the subject. On the way to the hotel, escorted by a guard with a revolver, we walked past a child seated on the curb. On a wooden plank before him, the child, scruff-faced and silent sold local candies. I walked right past him. Khalid stopped, talked to the kid, gave him a few Iraqi bills and took no candy.

“These kids are out here all day in the heat, and they have nothing,” he told me as we walked. “I feel bad for them, you know, dude?”

For all the times I have seen KHALID W. HASSAN REPORTING, thank you.

Ratatouille

If Sicko is sold out at your local theater, consider seeing Ratatouille (trailer here) instead.

In this Pixar film, a rat named Rémy dreams of becoming a chef at Gusteau's, a famous bistro in Paris. But the idea isn't palatable to the human chefs - except to a young man named Linguini who by family legacy and a little dumb luck manages to land a job there. Of course Linguini can't cook. In fact, Linguini is a blubbering idiot whose near-permanent deer-in-the-headlights expression is eclipsed only by his inability to do anything right. Linguini is a real Forrest Gump kind of character who somehow despite his idiocy manages to win our affection and sympathy.

Not just a coming-of-age story, Ratatouille is a story about how anyone can achieve great things through hard work and skill. That meritocratic message, however, is complicated by a story of inheritance. Gusteau, the man famous for saying "anyone can cook," leaves his restaurant not to his best chef but to someone with no culinary talent whatsoever: his son Linguini. Linguini, meanwhile, doesn't know he's the legal heir - which begs the question of why the chef who took over is so concerned. I also didn't understand why Colette, the female lead, falls in love with Linguini, though I suppose it's a side-story and therefore doesn't need much explaining. Finally, I wonder if Rémy could have communicated with Linguini by writing to him, given that the rat can read.

Kudos to the film for sticking to its plot, even though it suggests that the amiable chef Gusteau fathered a son out of wedlock. And despite the curious absence of female rats, the film espouses a feminist message. Colette tells Linguini: "How many women do you see in this kitchen? Only me. Why do you think that is? Because high cuisine is an antiquated hierarchy built upon rules by stupid, old men." Questions aside, this film is a delight, with gorgeous animation and perfect voices. And it's hilarious. I was laughing from my belly, such as when a mean-spirited chef tells the novice Linguini: "Let us toast, to your non-idiocy!" I'll finish with this funny exchange:

Mustafa: Someone has asked me what is new!
Horst: What did you tell them?
Mustafa: I told them I would ask!
Skinner: What are you blathering about?
Mustafa: People are asking what is new!
Skinner: What did you tell them?
Mustafa: I told them I would ask!

Pathologies of Power Preview

Expect a review of Paul Farmer's Pathologies of Power, forthcoming. I wrote previously about Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains, a journalistic biography of Farmer. Farmer's own writing, of course, discusses global health inequalities in greater depth. If I were to sum up the main thesis of this book, I'd quote Amartya Sen, whom Farmer himself quotes (8). The difference is that Farmer would replace "development" with "health."

“Development requires the removal of major sources of unfreedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systemic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or over-activity of repressive states.” [Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, New York: Knopf, 1999, pages 3-4.]

The other difference is that Farmer writes with a bit of a zing, fuming at one point:

“Does being human confer a right to survive?” (211).

Bleeding heart liberals

Gotta love them: idealistic, compassionate, naive. But why? What makes someone a liberal? Is it an outlook toward the world, a feeling toward other people? How are liberal beliefs connected?

Here's my attempt to discern a trend, through a partial list of liberal views:

The government should aid the poor, even if it requires a hike in taxes. Abortion services should be easily accessible. War should be used (if ever) as a last resort. "Terrorists" are people, too. Gays should get marital benefits. Embryonic stem cell research should get federal funding. The government should administer the health care system. The death penalty should be abolished. Guns should be more difficult to acquire. Universities should consider racial and socio-economic background in admissions. Undocumented immigrants should receive social services. (I mean, who else but immigrants still believe in the American dream? Liberals certainly don't.)

What connects these views? Is it an arbitrary collection, a packaged deal? Liberals purport to be optimistic, but deep down, I think we're as pessimistic as they come. To many liberals, the rags-to-riches American dream is dead. Of those who think that everyone has a chance to succeed in America, 46% are conservatives and 26% are liberals. Of those who think inequality is a serious problem, 53% are liberals and only 12% are conservatives. I interpret these data to mean that conservatives are either oblivious to the plight of the poor, or they're wildly optimistic about it. Strange to say, conservatives have a deeper faith than liberals do in social mobility and progress. No need for the government to step in to address inequality, they think. The American economy is bursting with opportunity. One of these days, the poor will figure it out.

What makes a person optimistic? Family history plays a role. A rich person who was born poor may be more likely to vote conservative. By contrast, someone born to an middle class family may believe that success is deeply rooted in social class. They'll say: it's no surprise that rich kids go to the best colleges, or better yet, that they get to go to college at all. Liberals want greater governmental intervention to reach out to poor people, sick people, gays, women, victims of gun violence, and others caught in the gaping rut of inequality. Conservatives, meanwhile, in their optimism, trust that the market will shakes things out. What they conveniently ignore is that success takes a good deal of luck (as few want to attribute their success to luck). Instead, they think talent is all that matters. But it's not. Liberals know it. To be a liberal is to recognize that success has as much to do with the circumstances of one's birth as with one's work ethic.