Kieran Healy

You take your kid to the specialist to talk about persistent symptom x and he says, “Well it’s probably harmless thing A, or maybe harmless thing B. And there’s a very small chance it’s the horrible and ultimately fatal genetic disorder C.”

If I were rational, this conversation would not have upset me as much as it did.

_Update:_ Given all the parents in the world who really do have serious child-health problems to deal with, and worse besides, I now feel ashamed for even bringing this extremely remote possibility of bad luck up here. It wasn’t even meant to be the point of the post, just a springboard for an observation. Don’t be surprised if the post disappears altogether soon, having died of embarassment.

“It’s Ratzinger”:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/international/worldspecial2/19cnd-conclave.html, as Benedict XVI. Oh boy.

Everyone else is talking about health care this week, so here’s a reprise of an old post of mine. Below is a figure showing the relationship between the “Publicness” of the health system and the amount spent on health care per person per year. Data points are each country’s mean score on these measures for the years 1990 to 2001.

You can also get a “nicer PDF version”:http://www.kieranhealy.org/files/misc/health-ratios.pdf of this figure. As you can see, health care in other advanced capitalist democracies is typically twice as public and half as expensive as the United States.

When I posted this before, I made the mistake of not emphasizing a key point: these data *do not include* any health-related Research and Development spending, so it’s not the case that the U.S. is way up in the top left simply because it’s generously subsidizing everyone else’s research costs.

The figure doesn’t show it, but it’s worth noting that despite not having a national health system, U.S. public expenditure on health in the 1990s was higher in terms of GDP than in Ireland, Switzerland, Spain, Austria, Japan, Australia and Britain.

It’s easy to see that mainstream debate about health care in the U.S. happens inside a self-contained bubble, and that one of its main conservative tropes — the inevitable expense and inefficiency of some kind of universal health care system — is wholly divorced from the data.

Peter Briffa “passes the latest meme thingy”:http://publicinterest.blogspot.com/2005/04/via-peter-cuthbertson-youre-stuck.html on to Crooked Timber. It’s a good job I never became a major celebrity (it was touch-and-go for a while there) because I am useless with these kinds of questions, and celebrities seem to get asked them all the time. I never know what my favorite _x_ (color, food, piece of music, composer, book, whatever) is; I can rarely remember the right answer to the “What’s the last …?” questions; and I can never think up a good response to the “If you only had …?” questions. This one is no different.

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‘But pray, sir, why must I not teach the young gentlemen?’

‘Because, sir, teaching young gentlemen has a dismal effect upon the soul. It exemplifies the badness of established, artificial authority. The pedagogue has almost absolute authority over his pupils: he often beats them and insensibly loses the sense of respect due to them as fellow human beings. He does them harm, but the harm they do him is far greater. He may easily become the all-knowing tyrant, always right, always virtuous; in any event he perpetually associates with his inferiors, the king of his company; and in a surprisingly short time alas this brands him with the mark of Cain. Have you ever known a schoolmaster fit to associate with grown men? The Dear knows I never have. They are most horribly warped indeed.

— Patrick O’Brian, “The Ionian Mission”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393308219/kieranhealysw-20/ref=nosim/, p84.

On the other hand, I wish I had the absolute authority to make my students do the reading. At least some of it.

Via “Slashdot”:http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/11/1358202&from=rss, a commentary by Michael Huang on “The Top Three Reasons for Humans in Space”:http://www.thespacereview.com/article/352/1:

Humans are in space:
3. To work
2. To live
1. To survive

The idea is that we should be out there exploring and colonizing because people are better than robots at doing a lot of things, because more life is better than less and so we should “establish habitats beyond Earth,” and because life on earth is increasingly under threat and so “If we were [living] throughout the solar system, at multiple locations, a disaster at one location would not end everything.”

These all seem like pretty weak reasons to me.

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Dear Sir,

I know this letter will come as a “surprise to you”:http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/major-gop-scandal-developing-in-ohio.html, but suffice to say I got your email from a contact at the Department of the Treasury, who assured me that you are capable and reliable to assist me in this transaction. Before I go into details, I will first introduce myself to you. I am Mr. Joseph Abudulkarim Adisa, associate to “TOM NOE”:http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050404/NEWS08/504040426, who is a prominent figure in the governing party of “OHIO”:http://ohio.gov/ and Chairman of the U.S. Mint’s Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee. Our “rare coin company”:http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050403/NEWS24/504030349 was entrusted with 50 (FIFTY) million dollars of public money since 1998, which we have used to buy various quantities of nickels, half-dollars, and gold dollars to sell to collectors or “lose in the mail”:http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050403/NEWS24/504030349. Photographs of these holdings are available on request, to allay any questions you may have about our completely legitimate business enterprise. You will no doubt have heard of the recent “political instability”:http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/ in the region, which has prompted an unjust and unfair “investigation”:http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050406/OPINION02/504060368 by seditious elements intent on seizing their our assets, and they must be moved out of the state as soon as possible. I have therefore been directed to inquire if you would agree to act as our overseas agent in order to actualize this transaction.

Via “Pandagon”:http://www.pandagon.net/mtarchives/004936.html, the “Rev. Terry Fox”:http://www.ljworld.com/section/gaymarriage/story/201237 of Wichita, KS:

bq. Fox helped turn defeat of the amendment in the Legislature in 2004 to victory for his side at the polls Tuesday night. The amendment passed by 70 percent to 30 percent. “We never dreamed we would have this margin of victory,” he said. Next in his sights, he said, is “keeping an eye on evolution and abortion clinics.”

Evolution clinics? Hey, that’s not such a bad idea. We could get “P.Z. Myers”:http://pharyngula.org/ to run them as a franchise:

Walk-in: Well _I_ think that evolution is just a _theory_.
PZ: Step in to this room, please.

Meanwhile, Tad Brennan finds the Washington Post describing the “unusual educational careers”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32379-2005Apr6.html of Howard Dean supporters:

bq. More than half (54 percent) hold post-graduate degrees and a quarter have graduated from college.

Tad says that if he’d known you could get a post-graduate degree without graduating college, he’d have saved years of his life.

“Mark Schmitt”:http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2005/04/david_brooks_is.html, “Jesse Taylor”:http://www.pandagon.net/mtarchives/004914.html#more and “Matt Yglesias”:http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2005/04/brooks_on_disag.html have some interesting (and, in Jesse’s case, annoyed) things to say about “this David Brooks column”:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/opinion/05brooks.html?ex=1270353600&en=95b8e0d5b311e9b1&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland. All I have to say is that I hate this sort of thing:

bq. A year ago I called the head of a prominent liberal think tank to ask him who his favorite philosopher was. If I’d asked about health care, he could have given me four hours of brilliant conversation, but on this subject he stumbled and said he’d call me back. He never did.

This is supposed to be an indictment? I mean, I’m sorry the guy didn’t call Brooks back. But can you think of _any_ answer that Brooks would not have been able to turn into a head-shaking anecdote about the intellectual poverty and disarray of modern liberalism? Meanwhile, Brooks switches on his dichotomizer and, remarkably, always has himself come down on the right side — Red and Blue, Thinkers and Actors, Isolationists and Interventionists, “Fifties intellectuals and Contemporary intellectuals”:http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/media/columns/medialife/n_9749/index1.html , “Lucky-Charmers and Cheerioians”:http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2004/9/20warner.html. Occasionally he’ll divide people up in a way that makes sense in the light of your own analysis of things. This is what seems to have happened this time with “Mark Schmitt”:http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2005/04/david_brooks_is.html. But whereas Mark has a point of view and an argument to back it up, I don’t see much evidence that Brooks’ efforts are coming from anywhere other than the ur-distinction in his head between Us and Them.

“Brad DeLong”:http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/04/ben_bernanke_to.html gets a mild case of “pundit’s fallacy”:http://www.jargondatabase.com/Jargon.aspx?id=990 as he reacts to the news that “Ben Bernanke will head the CEA”:http://news.ft.com/cms/s/0de25c40-a304-11d9-b4e8-00000e2511c8,_i_rssPage=9d5b9ebe-c8bc-11d7-81c6-0820abe49a01.html:

bq. … the first thing that Ben should do is to make a stand on a technical-but-vital issue where the CEA should have made its stand: get the Bush administration to reduce the clawback real interest rate on its proposed private accounts from 3% plus inflation to a floating rate equal to the U.S. Treasury’s borrowing rate (or the borrowing rate minus a small margin). That would keep Bush’s private accounts from being a bad deal for the non-rich who opt for them.

He probably should. But one has to ask, how likely is it that _that’s_ going to happen? Bernanke certainly seems like a good guy, but the Bush Administration has a way of making sure that the good guys knuckle under. I see three ways this might happen. First, a pre-emptive effort to get him to publicly articulate the Apostolic Creed of the administration. (“I believe in one authority, the Executive almighty …”) Second, a straightforward smack on the wrist (or blow to the back of the head) as soon as Bernanke tries to assert a bit of intellectual independence. Third, a temptation on Bernanke’s part to make a Devil’s bargain: something like, “If I hold back for now, I’ll be in a _much_ stronger position to do the right thing when they appoint me Chairman of the Fed.” That way madness lies.

An eye-rolling moment at “Instapundit”:http://instapundit.com/archives/022180.php:

From the comments at Tim Blair’s:
Final score for the 20th century:
Ordinary Poles, 2.
German intellectuals, 0.
Heh.

Right. Some scenes from a life:

1938. Moves to Kracow, enrolls in the Faculty of Philosophy at “Jagellonian University”:http://www.uj.edu.pl/index.en.html.

1939. Joins ‘Studio 38’ experimental theatre group. He would eventually write six plays.

1946. Ordained a priest. Studies at the “Angelicum University.”:http://www.pnac.org/Universities/PUSTAAngelicum.htm.

1947. Receives his doctorate in philosophy. Thesis on “The Problems of Faith in the Works of St John of the Cross.” Returns to Poland to lecture in Philosophy and Social Ethics at Jagellonian University.

1953. Defends second doctorate, titled “Evaluation of the possibility of founding a Catholic ethic on the ethical system of Max Scheler” at the “Catholic University of Lublin”:http://www.kul.lublin.pl/uk/. (Max Scheler was one of those German Intellectuals, by the way.) During this period, publishes poetry in various Polish journals under the pseudonym, “Andrzej Jawien.”

1954. Untenured Professor of Philosophy at Lublin.

1956. Appointed to a the Chair of Moral Theology and Ethics at Lublin.

And so on. Always nice to see Professor Reynolds standing up for the value of the life of the mind.

Pope John Paul II came to Ireland in 1979. It was the first time a reigning pontiff had visited the country and the nation went crazy. I was six. My father, my younger brother and my uncle Donal drove to Limerick to see him, along with about 300,000 other people. He faced a similar-sized crowd in Galway, and filled the Phoenix Park in Dublin with nearly a million people, by some estimates. This in a country of about three and a half million people. I went to bed at six o’clock the night before and my father woke me up at midnight. I was put in charge of the torch. We drove up to the Northside to pick up my uncle. Then we hit the road at about half one in the morning, along with most of the rest of Munster. There were helicopters overhead, monitoring the traffic. It was the first time Radio 2 broadcast all the way through the night. It’s sixty five miles from Cork to Limerick. We parked the car a mile or so from the Mass site at about seven o’clock in the morning. Then we got out the deck chairs, settled down and waited for the Pope to arrive.

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Amazon has a new feature:

_Amazon.com Statistically Improbable Phrases_: Amazon.com’s Statistically Improbable Phrases, or “SIPs”, show you the interesting, distinctive, or unlikely phrases that occur in the text of books in Search Inside the Book. Our computers scan the text of all books in the Search Inside program. If they find a phrase that occurs a large number of times in a particular book relative to how many times it occurs across all Search Inside books, that phrase is a SIP in that book.

Experimenting with this, I find that SIPs effectively convey the essence of an author’s ideas, provided that the author is a phrase-maker. Very useful for cocktail parties. Here, by way of example, is the condensed essence of a number of sociological theorists.

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From a “local news report”:http://abclocal.go.com/wls/news/040105_ap_ns_birthcontrol_orders.html in Chicago:

bq. Governor Rod Blagojevich today filed an emergency rule with the Illinois Secretary of State’s office requiring birth control prescriptions be filled without delay at pharmacies selling contraceptives. Under the rule, if the contraceptive is not in stock, the pharmacy must order it or, if the patient prefers, transfer the prescription to a nearby pharmacy. If the pharmacist does not fill the prescription because of a moral objection, another pharmacist must be available to fill it. … Blagojevich is a result of a Chicago pharmacist recently refusing to fill orders for contraceptives because of moral opposition.

Well no wonder he’s taking the lead on this.