Opinion : Smart people live longer

A study described in this article claims that people who are "medically illiterate" die faster (see study for more technical description). I tend to question whether "medically illiterate" couldn't just be replaced by the more genaralized "ignorant". I realize there is something to be said for following directions, and I realize that people who don't understand physicians may be good at understanding other things, but I think that in some of these academic studies, scientists miss the big picture.
A good example was a study at a brain aging conference last year where a researcher reported that people with higher mental abilities (which he measured by level of education attained) had less rapid brain deterioration over time. The scientist indulged some theory about "reserve" which he could neither measure of explain. Let me propose a more obvious theory (but alas, one that will not win any grant money): Smarter people do less stupid things. "Stupid things" in this case are actions which cause brain damage. Unfortunately, I cant find any study that shows that PhD's get into less bar fights or are less likely to be professional boxers, but the anecdotal evidence is there....
Back to the study on medical literacy, I can't think of how they could have separated the effect of not understanding medical directions vs the effect of not understanding other directions in life. If a patient doesn't understand "take twice a day", do they understand "use by 7/23"? Not taking antibiotics for a GI infection and eating spoiled food will have the same effect. The fact is that ignorant people frequently make choices that shorten their life compared to their peers. This is as clear today as it was to social darwinists in past centuries. We need to fix the problem through better education, and also by identifying who the susceptible people are and treating them differently. The different treatment must be in the benevolent sense however, otherwise the identification will lead to unfair discrimination.

Great Article : Autism is NOT caused by vacines

I had previously posted the reasons I have found that showed why vaccines don't cause Autism. Here are some more. This article suggests that maybe some people just jumped on the bandwagon because they could potentially get money out of it. Well no $#!t. The article doesn't even mention the fact that the money being wasted on this litigation could be going to research to find the actual cause of the disease. This is part of a disturbing trend of Americans embracing greedy lawyers and crackpots instead of science.

Great Article : The real way to Desegregate schools

Brown vs the board of ed. may have ended official race segregation, but as anyone who has lived in both a urban area and the suburbs knows, America's schools are still mostly segregated. Basically it goes Black-poor-inner city-underachieving vs White-wealthy-suburbs-average achieving. Educators have repeatedly tried to fix the last part (achievement) by mixing the first part (race). Whenever race is used discrimination occurs however (even if for good ends), and thanks to the recent decision by the supreme court, this is now illegal. A much better way to attack problem is this proposal, which uses financial status to discriminate. This is a fantastic idea, and as the article claims, it may even fix the race problem as a side effect. Note to Public school teachers, there is something new called capitalism, please look it up... 2 page report due Friday.

On a side note, I can think of two reasons why economic based affirmative action is a better idea than race based AA. First is because to succeed at just about anything requires money, and poor people don't have it, no matter what race they are (obviously). No matter what the NAACP thinks, it is not easy for a poor white person to get very far in life or go to a good school. This leads us to the second problem with race AA: rich minorities. My work in college admissions has given me experiences with minorities who have every advantage growing up, but are also entitled to more because they are underrepresented. While I have nothing against the parents of my peers who needed help during the civil rights era to get a good education, I don't believe for a second that any of my private school friends or people in this neighborhood need any special help to get into private colleges. Long story short, using race allows well-off minorities to take advantage of the system, usually at the expense of the poor minorities whose places they take. Today at work, I talked to a African American girl on the phone who was unhappy that the available apartments in Center City weren't "up to her standards". I was not amused because of the fact that I just had to move out of CC because I could not afford it (this girl also dismissed East Falls after I suggested it.) This girl had applied to a disadvantaged minority program at Drexel (DPMS) , clearly hoping to play the race card in admissions (the program requests but doesn't enforce the "poor" requirement and people frequently try to take advantage) Karma won this battle though, as our wealthy "disadvantaged" applicant got rejected from the minority program because her application missed the deadline. Can't wait to see how she likes being treated like everyone else...

Great Article : Sicko and healthcare costs

While I admit that I haven't gotten around to watching sicko yet (I will need to pirate it because I am morally opposed to Michael Moore getting any of my money) my knee jerk reaction to the trailer was apparently shared with this slate writer. The irony of this documentary is that if he succeeds in causing an overhaul in the US health system, Michael Moore will help his worst enemy more than anyone else. Greedy American corporations, especially GM, stand to benefit the most from a European style healthcare system. It may surprise a lot of poor people in this country, but the brunt of healthcare costs are actually bared by businesses (as benefit expenses) as opposed to individuals (via taxes) as in European countries. The real Question here is are you willing to pay more taxes to help the sort of people in Moore's movie get better care? If yes, remember that you will be doing a huge favor to GM (especially its short term share holders), and Wall street pension managers. At least there can then be a Sicko 2... (or maybe a Richard and Me)

Disclaimer: I work at a huge for-profit hospital in a poor neighborhood.

Great Article : The decline of the US auto industry

As Toyota prepares to claim the title of the worlds largest car maker, this article from the BBC is a fascinating look at the decline of the big three American automakers. It is a sad story (for americans at least) of a spectacular fall and an important lesson for industrial giants everywhere. The British seem to blame it mostly on the vague force of "globalization", but i think it has to do with poor decisions, greedy near sighted American investors, and shoddy engineering as well. I have predicted the fall of GM for awhile now (although it looks at the moment that Ford is even more likely to go first), and when the post mortems are finally written, there will be a lot of blame to go around. The article also looks at the local human impact, which I suppose is also sad...

Opinion : Dog Meat

(this may be a repeat theme...) I have always wanted to try dog meat. I love dogs, and i have always been keen on trying every kind of food I could find. Alas, years of searching for someone to make it have proved fruitless. (the closest I got was a woman in South Boston who said she made it once in China and could make it here if only they could legally get my hands on a suitable dog)
Apparently most Americans consider this to be morally wrong, but I am not really sure why. I would like to go much deeper into this argument, but there is no need, as this fine article has gone there for me. An old but good one from the archives, I could not have said any of this better myself. If only I had a passport and enough money to go to Korea...

Opinion : New Kick-ass Radio Station

last month, a coworker brought a new radio station to my attention. It quickly became the permanent station on all day at work and also in my car. This station is 104.5 owned by clear channel, and it is an interesting experiment in modern radio. It is a station that has no talkshows or DJ's. It is simply a computer that plays songs over and over. And because there is no staff overhead, they never play more than 60 seconds worth of commercials at a time. The format is a mix of modern rock, 90's alternative, with a rare 70's or 80's classic. Only the new songs seem to repeat and even then only once a day (I listen to this station for 8hrs straight, so this is really appreciated) The combination of song range and no commercials or annoying talking make this simply the best station I have ever heard. I hope that this station stays around and that it doesn't get big and start airing a lot more commercials.

As I now listen to a station run entirely by computers, I am starting to wonder if this is the future of radio. A similiar alternative concept has also started broadcasting nearby my apt, a station calling itself Skin Radio. A bunch of hipsters seem to have bought AM bands on the cheap as the believe HD tech and the internet will allow them to compete with FM stations. While this maybe the ultimate answer to the Clear Chanel beast, my tastes are a bi more mainstream to care at this point. As long as Clear Channel keeps innovating, they are fine by me.

Dateline 7/5/07

Well the 4th of July was a washout. Me and my girlfriend had gone to the public celebration in Philly, but like everything else in this city, it did not live up to the hype. First of all, there was a noticeable lack of American flags there. I pointed out at the time that they still had every other country's flag up on the parkway, maybe they should replace them with American ones for independence day. The next day in the Metro, the editorials ripped the city for not even putting up a flag on the main stage. Not that I necessarily want any of the crappy acts that played associated with my country, but come on. Did they outsource the planning of this thing?

Well obviously they didn't outsource it to China, because at least the Chinese know how to do a fireworks show. The city said around nine that the fireworks were off as it was pouring rain. Most of the crowd (me and my GF included) got up and left at this point. Problem was, at 11:30 (30 mins. late and without explanation) they shot off all the fireworks anyway. So I got soaked but saw no fireworks. fantastic. At least there was one chinese takeout place open.