A reader named LLP sent an e-mail early yesterday morning with an interesting question: I was reading this article regarding California farmers moving their operations to Mexico. The following quote struck me, and I’m trying to find an explanation for the difference in productivity: “Scaroni expects [to] recover his start-up costs because of the lower wages he pays farm workers . . .
As a big fan of prostitution — er, I mean, as someone who’s very interested in the social, economic, legal, and psychological elements of prostitution — it’s always good to see interesting articles about what’s always called “the world’s oldest profession.” (If I recall correctly, this premise was once countered on an episode of Barney Miller. As I remember it, . . .
In honor of New York Fashion Week, which begins today, our new Q&A subject is John Caplan, the president of Ford Models. In the comments section below, feel free to ask him anything you like, except for personal phone numbers. (See here, here, and here for earlier reader-generated Q&A’s.) Ford is one of the largest modeling agencies in the world, . . .
The U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum in Florence, Colorado, widely known as the “Supermax” prison, houses many of the nation’s most notorious and violent criminals. But you probably haven’t read any interviews with any of those prisoners — including Sammy Gravano, John Walker Lindh, and Ramzi Yousef — in the last several years. Why not? According to this article by Alan . . .
Last week, we ran the first installment of Jessica Hagy‘s special- Freakonomics-edition “Indexed” posts. Here is her homepage, and here is her latest for us: DREAMS & NIGHTMARES _____________________________________________________
See? Even bacteria cheat. (Earlier) Dissed by Oprah: one author’s tale. Global warming hits the fashion industry. (Earlier) Can railroad track layouts show the causal effects of segregation?
Can you beat the aptonym “Paige Worthy” for a magazine fact-checker? Come and try your luck in the Freakonomics “Aptonym-Off.”
Courtesy of Playboy Enterprises, Inc. Last week, we solicited your questions for Playboy editorial director Chris Napolitano. You responded with vigor. And now, so has he. This may be the longest Q&A in the history of the printed word. Unlike our previous Q&A subjects who picked five or ten of your questions to answer, Napolitano answered every last one of . . .
Levitt’s take on the current crime stats for the five largest U.S. cities
Dubner weighs in on Google News’ new feature, which allows the subjects of news articles to comment on the pieces about them.
After two years of submitting cartoons and getting nothing but rejection, Robert Mankoff finally succeeded in selling his first cartoon to The New Yorker in the 1970’s. He went on to become one of the magazine’s premiere cartoonists and ultimately its cartoon editor. He also had the clever idea of founding The Cartoon Bank, a company meant to syndicate and . . .
Now it’s been revealed that the reality show we blogged about the other day was a hoax designed to call attention to the shortage of donated organs. The contestants who needed kidneys really do need kidneys, but the “donor” was an actress. “We have only done this cry for help because we want to solve a problem that shouldn’t be . . .
Ever since this first post on organ transplants just over a year ago followed by our subsequent New York Times column on the subject, we have received many, many tips about interesting, strange, provocative, and even useful incentives to encourage more organ donation. But nothing comes close to the latest one, which was sent in by at least 8 or . . .
Turns out the “CSI” effect on the criminal justice system may not be quite as severe as we thought. Michigan Circuit Judge and Eastern Michigan University criminology professor Donald E. Shelton has published a paper indicating that the TV show’s effects on jurors may be exaggerated. The data, consisting of a survey of 1,027 jurors called for duty in a . . .
Did you happen to catch the Miss Universe pageant on NBC last night? Me neither. It was held in Mexico City. Based on this Reuters report, it sounds like we missed a doozy of a reality show: During the evening gown parade, Miss USA, Rachel Smith, slipped on the runway and landed on her bottom, although the slip didn’t stop . . .
New research has demonstrated a link between the ratio of the length of the index finger to the ring finger to relative scores on the math and reading SAT. The relative length of these two fingers is apparently related to testosterone and estrogen levels in utero. While this research focuses on comparisons between the sexes, a logical extrapolation would be . . .
Repulsed by that six-inch centipede? Or are you simply being reminded of your own inevitable demise? A study led by Cathy Cox, a graduate student in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia, determined that people find certain things disgusting because they make apparent our “vulnerability to death.” Food for thought next time you find yourself eating . . .
Over at MarginalRevolution, Tyler Cowen has posted a few suggestions, and is soliciting more. One of Cowen’s ideas: Allow all candidates to watch a short debate of experts — with a fraud or two thrown in — and ask them to evaluate what they just heard and why they reached the conclusion they did. He also suggests they should conduct . . .
BusinessWeek recently reported on the creative product-placement deals that daytime TV shows employ. The highlight of the article is Martha Stewart — the self-described “most trusted guide to stylish living” — discussing with pure candor her capitalizing ways: “I like to inform people about good things.” Stewart’s syndicated NBC show, which airs daily at 4 PM, is currently lagging in . . .
Pasadena Now, a news Web site devoted to local coverage of the Pasadena region, has taken the term “outsourcing” to new heights, hiring two reporters in India (one of whom graduated from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism) to cover the goings-on of the Pasadena City Council from 9,000 miles away. The goal, according to editor and publisher James . . .
Via Carl Bialik, The Wall Street Journal‘s Numbers Guy: Indiana University assistant professor of journalism Mike Conway has released a report calculating the number of times Bill O’Reilly used name-calling and other so-called “propaganda techniques” on his show. The data were gathered by volunteers who catalogued 105 episodes of O’Reilly’s two-minute “Talking Points Memo,” tallying the use of seven rhetorical . . .
A few nights ago in San Antonio, Al Gore gave his global-warming lecture at the American Institute of Architects’ national convention. “It’s in part a spiritual crisis,” he said. “It’s a crisis of our own self-definition – who we are. Are we creatures destined to destroy our own species? Clearly not.” According to the San Antonio Express-News, Gore was “especially . . .
Last week’s New Yorker “Annals of Law” column dealt with the increased public interest in forensic crime investigations in the wake of TV shows like CSI. Written by the excellent Jeffrey Toobin, the article looks at how the show’s popularity has mainstreamed and glamorized forensic analysis to the point of altering criminal trials. (Here’s a summary, though the full piece . . .
Time Out New York is the magazine that people buy when they’re visiting New York and want to know where to go and what to see. (It’s a British import but has been here at least 10 years by now; secret confession: my family and many other New Yorkers use it too, all the time.) This week, T.O.N.Y. is running . . .
As stated here before, this blog was barely meant to be born at all, much less go on for two years. But now we’ve decided to stick around for at least a couple more years — when, if all goes well, we’ll publish our next book. Since we’re going to keep at it, we figured, we might as well try . . .
The business woes of the U.S. newspaper industry, and of most other traditional media, have been exhaustively chronicled, most vigorously in newspapers themselves. (I sometimes think that the entire journalism/ music/film/TV industry just needs a 5-year bridge loan to help it safely migrate to the digital future, when online distribution and advertising are robust enough to support them.) So it . . .
Here’s what he had to say. I would argue that he is, um, wrong. Anyone who can say with a straight face that the mainstream media’s portrayal of global warming has been overly skeptical deserves — well, an Oscar. P.S.: David Remnick wrote a very interesting essay on Gore in this week’s New Yorker (and his long Gore profile from . . .
In responding to yesterday’s post about the astronaut love triangle (or, more appropriately, “love V,” as one wise commenter put it), you all offered a number of compelling explanations for the story’s explosion. I must say, however, that I was surprised to read that so many people think of astronauts as larger-than-life heroes, only because I thought that image was . . .
I read a Wall Street Journal article a few weeks ago about how one very promising form of biofuel, palm oil, is in fact having deleterious effects on the environment. In Southeast Asia, farmers cleared huge swaths of rainforest in order to create palm plantations; they also drained and burned off peatland to create arable land, generating massive smoke pollution. . . .
They are among the celebrities featured in a new ad campaign by the Wall Street Journal. Here’s the story — which, unfortunately, doesn’t mention Levitt. But trust me, he’ll show up in the campaign. Remember when Levitt blogged about a very, very strange photo shoot? This is the one. In exchange for appearing in the ad, Levitt (and I assume . . .