What a Difference a Couple of Years Make

So a couple years ago I'd been working for nearly 3 years since graduation.  My company has a pension plan, which I considered to be an anachronism of an earlier time.  It's completely beyond my control!  There's nothing I can do to save more or less.  Plus, everyone knows you change jobs too much in the modern economy for a pension to really make any sense.  I wasn't even vested in it and I had much more money in my 401(k).  Besides, what are the odds the pension program will even exist when I retire?

I complained about this to a couple friends who had worked there around 5 years (at the time) and they both said "Well, I figure that the company will have to buy me out eventually, so it doesn't bother me that much that it exists."

Two years and a financial crisis later, the pension plan is looking pretty attractive.  I actually read the plan details this afternoon!  Despite putting a lot more money into my 401(k) it's value by 50% of the money I put in - for every $1.00 I put in, I had $0.50 left.  Meanwhile, over the course of the last two years the cash-benefit value of my pension has doubled (between pay-based credits and interest credits).   Suddenly the idea of a pension isn't so terrible.

I imagine that I'm not the only person in there mid- to late-20's coming to this conclusion.  We heard all the conventional wisdom that the day of the pension was over and it was all about individual retirement saving accounts (401(k)'s, 403(b)'s, IRA's, etc.).  After this financial crisis I wouldn't be surprised to see people actually viewing a pension plan more positively.

One the lessons I've really taken from all of this is that there's a lot more bad advice out there than good advice.  I sort of always ignored the price appreciation in the real estate market because I didn't think that it was sustainable, but I was pretty shocked by how terrible the financial institutions of this country were run.  I can't be the only person that's going to wary of any investment advice for a few years.  Perhaps we'll see a resurgence of lower-return, lower-risk investments and savings.  

It might even be worth re-examining the aversion to defined benefits programs.  Many arguments that I've heard against defined benefits plans rest on the assumptions that the stock market will return 8% every year and that individuals are good at investing their money.  Now that we've had a stark reminder that defined contribution programs (like individually managed 401(k)'s) can lose a lot of money, perhaps we can work on how to make defined benefits plans work more effectively.  They can be costly to companies and governments, no shareholder likes a big earnings hit when the pension fund under-performs, but perhaps that's a price worth paying to allow workers to have some financial safety net for retirement.

It's a thought at least...

Unemployed Douchebag Seeks Personality

Have you ever had that terrible feeling that without your six-figure income you would have a hard time dating girls? How you ever wondered you'd get by without your $700 per month dating budget? I haven't and I honestly would not have believed such people existed until I read this insightful piece from the Washington Post called Market for Romance Goes from Bullish to Sheepish. Apparently, this is a widespread problem among a certain set of jackasses who made way too much money in their mid-20's.

I'm going to pick on one guy in particular. Why? Because he sounds like a douchebag. He was making a lucrative salary at a financial firm until he got laid off last year. Now he laments that unemployment is hurting his relationship with his girlfriend. I doubt it. I think being a whiny momma's boy is hurting his relationship with his girlfriend.

1. Be very overpaid financial guy in Cleveland with girlfriend in NYC. Fly frequently to NYC to visit girlfriend and take her to expensive restaurants.
2. Get laid off.
3. Move in with your parents in Alexandria. Take the Chinatown bus to NYC.
4. Whine about it in the Washington Post.

Why are we supposed to feel bad for this guy? Grow up dude. You're 27. Why didn't you use unemployment as an excuse to move to NYC and job-hunt near your girlfriend? If you cared about someone other than yourself, that's what you'd do. But instead, since you're not the super-awesome rich guy you thought you were, your ego is crushed and you slinked home to mommy.

The article gets even better on the second page, where a number of 22- (since when does 22 count as young professional, you're barely post-college!) to 27-year-old women state that they are only willing to date men who have a lot of money to throw around. Presumably these women have their own careers, but think that thinly-disguised gold-digging to totally normal.

In the end, I think that we learned a lot more about the culturally-shallow, personality-devoid, young professionals that our Washington Post staff writer hangs out with than we did about what it's like to be unemployed in your mid-20's. I was really hoping to hear some interesting stories, I know a few people in that situation and it really sucks. But the people I know have been doing their level best not to let it get in the way of their personal relationships or what they love in life. I suppose that's because they are interesting, fun people.

Honestly though, if these people can't figure out how to make a personal connection without involving a lot of money, perhaps it's best that they aren't able to date - as a society we should do our best to lower the possibility that they will ever be responsible for children.

It Doesn't Always Have to be Like This

In the time that I've lived in Baltimore, it's been almost true by definition that "you're never more than 3 blocks from a bad neighborhood." Tonight I was driving through the city and thought "Perhaps it doesn't always have to be like this."

When you get down to it, it's pretty incredible that I even live in this city. My parents are firmly from the generation that grew up outside the city (their parents having moved to the suburbs before they were born / from a rural area) and I think their idea of city life was cemented during the late 1970's (mid-80's at the latest). To walk after dark in an urban area is to take your life into your own hands, even at 8 PM in Mount Vernon. To me, you just have to be aware of your surroundings and in large swathes of this city you're going to be fine (although there are even larger swathes where you might want to be concerned).

So, just as my parents formed an opinion about how cities operate, I've got this picture of how cities work and I'm thinking that perhaps in a few years it will be outdated. My impression of cities (of which Baltimore is an extreme example) is that there are the "good areas" full of late-model apartments or rehabbed townhouses or warehouses converted to condos and the "bad areas" full of poverty, dilapidated housing, and crime. The transition from one to the other is very sharp (as little as a couple blocks or a bridge) and usually marked by recently rehabbed homes, construction, or real estate sale signs.

Tonight I realized that given the current financial collapse, the Baltimore real estate boom may have tailed off for good. I am still feeling slightly optimistic that Baltimore gets hurt less than the rest of the nation, so hopefully it doesn't go much the other way (I hear the B'more real estate market is holding up better than the national average). If that's true, then here's what we might see - the rich stay rich, the poor stay poor, but perhaps some middle-income neighborhoods will start to exist in between.

Seems crazy, right? For the last decade or so as fast as an area became at all reasonable to live in real estate values jumped up so quickly that only rich yuppie types could afford them. Since the rich and middle-class had been steadily departing cities for the previous few decades, that meant that they started pushing back poor neighborhoods. This has sort of ended, but if we're lucky, it won't totally reverse. If the expansion slows down then it might be possible for middle-income families to start migrating to the transitional areas near the rich yuppie neighborhoods. In time, the transitional neighborhoods could become a reasonable area.

I don't know, call me crazy, but I kind of do like Baltimore and I do want to believe that urban living can be a reasonable lifestyle in the modern world. I'm not crazy enough to think we're going to have mixed-income neighborhoods, but is it too much to dream to imagine a city with less of a bimodal income distribution?

More Thoughts on Murder - With Graphs!

After my recent post on Baltimore's low (by Baltimore standards) murder total last year, a couple people commented that we should look at per capita murders rather than the annual total.  I think that there is some truth in those comments, but after fooling around with the data a little, I can also see how you would get a misleading story.

First off, a quick word on my data sources; all data for 2000-2007 is from the FBI's annual Crime in the United States (CIUS) publication.  The CIUS summarizes the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program every year.  I'd never really looked at this before, but it's an amazing amount of information that's available to everyone.  I'm jumping the gun a little on 2008, so any numbers for 2008 are unofficial and the per capita numbers are especially suspect because the Census Bureau has not released 2008 population estimates (so I assumed no population change since 2007, which is obviously false for places like Baltimore and Detroit).  Finally, we need to remember that these are population estimates, not full Census data.  Also, I'm no trained demographer, so I'm not necessarily qualified to really analyze any of this - but I do love to make a good chart.

I chose to look as far back as 2000 because 1) that's when I moved to Baltimore and 2) after you look too far back you start wondering if you're really comparing apples to apples.  Anyway, here's a quick plot of where we've been as a city:

So you can look at graph and see that it's not immediately obvious that a reduction in murders from 261 in 2000 to 234 in 2008 might not actually reduce the per capita murder rate in Baltimore.  Before we get to per capita murders, I'd like to think a little bit more about the total murders in Baltimore.

In 2000, Baltimore was home to about 648,000 people.  At the same time East Newark, New Jersey was home to 2,377 people.  From 2000 to 2008, 2,377 people were murdered in Baltimore.  That's right, it took only 9 years for Baltimore's criminals to exterminate a population equivalent to a small New Jersey borough.  Yes, it seems silly that New Jersey have a mayor and six city council members to govern the 0.1 square miles of land and 0.04 square miles of water that comprises the borough of East Newark, but I'm sure Mayor Joseph R. Smith would be very disappointed to have his entire city wiped out. 

I'm making fun of New Jersey, sure, but the numbers really are mind-boggling.  Just trying to wrap your mind around the idea of a couple thousand murders is tough.  Here's another way to look at it: from 2000 to 2007, Baltimore's population is estimated to have declined from 647,955 to 624,237 - a decline of 23,718 residents.  Over that same time period, 2,143 people were murdered in Baltimore (i.e. the entire population of Vernon, AL).  Murders alone account for 9.0% of Baltimore's 2000-2007 population decline!

This ridiculously high murder rate is made even more tragic because of it's disproportionate effect on certain populations of Baltimore.  For example, in 2008 91% of homicide victims are African-American in a city that is only 64% African-American (source: Baltimore Sun).  It's just unbelievable; it works out to a per capita murder rate five times higher for African-Americans than everyone else in 2008!

Speaking of per capita murder rates, without further ado, here's the chart you've all been waiting for:

With the usual warnings about comparing crime statistics, I'm going to launch into what I think I've learned by looking at that chart.  First of all, Baltimore's murder rate has been fairly constant, even when adjusted for a falling population.  Over this time period we've looked a lot like Detroit, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that relationship loosen up over the next couple years.  Detroit looks to be in for a much rougher economic ride than we are (knock on wood).  It is interesting that both Baltimore and Detroit saw a big dip in murders this year (but St. Louis jumped out of trend).  St. Louis's trend line is a little scary because they saw a big one-year dip earlier this decade, but then jumped right back up to a murder rate in the high 30's.  Washington DC does give us a little hope, they managed to reset to a new, lower murder rate in the middle of this decade.

Other things you might want to know (but are not immediately obvious) - the city of St. Louis has about half Baltimore's population, so you'd expect the data to be a bit noisier since the murder rate LSB in St. Louis is twice as large as in Baltimore.  DC is approximately the same size at this point (because Baltimore has lost a lot of population and DC is fairly steady) and Detroit is larger.  However, I'd expect a big upward revision in Detroit's per capita murder rate because they are losing population fast enough that my "re-use the 2007 population estimate" makes the denominator too big.

Finally, it's kind of interesting how rock-steady the national murder rate has been this decade.  It's varied from 5.5 to 5.7 - which is actually way down from the mid-1980's (when it was over 8 for a few years).  When you look at the time-series data from the 1980's to the present you really start to appreciate the drop in violent crime nationwide.  This is probably why your parents worry so much about you living in the city.  Their concept of urban crime was set a generation ago, when it was objectively more dangerous to live anywhere!

As I said in my previous post, 2008 was a good year for Baltimore in terms of murders.  We were 3.28 sigma below the 2000-2007 average for total murders (although, due to the vagaries of population estimates and a falling population we were only 1.62 sigma lower than average for the per capita murder rate).  It'd sure be nice to say that 2008 was statistically significant and that something has really changed in Baltimore - that what the police are doing different is definitely working - but the first nine days of 2009 sure haven't helped (12 murders plus a shooting victim on life support).

The problem here is that for all the good work that the police may have done in 2008, 2-3 very violent months (November to now) could spell real trouble.  Many people have criticized the Baltimore Police for jumping from strategy to strategy.  If murders stay high for another 2 months, even if it's not necessarily out of trend for the last decade, there will be pressure on the police to change tactics yet again.  Those crime rate graphs are powerful tools but as the platitude goes, with great power comes great responsibility.  It is very, very easy to make a graph say whatever you'd like.

Working in a technical field, I see plots of things ALL the time.  Even though your natural instinct is to look a the pretty lines or bars or whatever, you have to train yourself to first look at the axes, at the units, at the title, and then ask whoever made the graph "Where did you get your data?"  Or "How did you calculate x?"  Contrary to popular belief, measured data is not the end-all, be-all of engineering.  Probably about half of all charts of measured data I see have some sort of fatal problem.  That's when you start to see who the really good engineers are.  The good engineers look a plot of data, even measured data, and if it doesn't match up to what their technical intuition says reality ought to look like they'll just say "I don't believe that, I think there's something wrong with the measurement."  So after arguing about it for half an hour, someone will agree to go back and remeasure.  A bad cal on the measurement equipment, a loose connector, operator misunderstood directions, measured from the wrong datum, measured the wrong channel, measured the wrong serial number, forgot to turn on the coolant, error in the test software, error in the spreadsheet math, test equipment not sensitive enough... the list of things that can go wrong in a measurement is endless.

So what does that have to do with anything?  My point is that we're measuring physical properties at my workplace.  I mean, these are things that are governed by physics, things that can't change.  The most important thing to remember in engineering is that those measurements aren't the truth, if you're lucky you get a picture of what the truth probably looks like.  So I figure that maybe half of all graphs of measured physical data are misleading or do not tell the whole truth (eventually you get there, but it takes a few iterations).  Now we're talking about something that is not governed by a physical, or even rational, process.  We're talking about violent crime and murder, so a short-term spike gets noticed.  Even if it were just truly random process, sometimes you get a clump, the human brain tries to see patterns in randomness.  But it's hard to adjust your mind to the idea that "Yeah, even if this were random, we could get 12 murders in 9 days," it's an emotional issue that skips over that logical part of your brain.  People see 12 murders in 9 days and think "Surely this is a trend!  This is a crisis!"  But it doesn't have to be.  It could just be a random coincidence.  Just looking at the graph doesn't tell you the story.

Finally, murders are not caused by a mechanistic, or even rational, process.  So to some extent, saying "We followed X police procedure and saw a Y% reduction in murders" is a worthless statement.  There's a correlation all right, but is there a causal relationship?  Murders are not one of those things that you can afford to have a control in your experiment (not that there are not advanced statistical methods that professionals can use to evaluate procedures that do a better job of controlling for other variables).  My advice would be to take a look at how other forms of crime change, because some crimes are more rational that others.  I may yet do this, but I'm also afraid that any improvements made by the Baltimore PD might be swamped out by the huge effect of the recession and increased unemployment.  

Overall, I sure hope that they give Bealefield a little while longer to apply his strategies before forcing him to change to something new.  I like a lot of the much-reported ideas (closer work with the state's attorney and US district attorney, sending repeat gun offenders away to federal prison for longer sentences, working harder to prevent domestic violence before it turns into assault/murder, focusing on arrest warrants for violent offenders) and would like to see how they turn out.

Ok, time for one last chart even though I've said about graphs and statistics are often misleading (every engineer can tell you about the time they passed some product because 4 out of 10 tested perfect only to find out later that 5 of the other 6 would have failed).  I mean, despite all their drawbacks, a good plot or graph can sure be interesting.

(On the plot above I am counting murderous acts that occur in that year, so if someone dies of injuries sustained in prior year violence they are not counted.  Since I have this all in a file now, if someone dies in 2009 from 2008 injuries, I will update my 2008 murder count instead of 2009 (this is the opposite of how Baltimore's PD (and I think the UCR) count murders)).

PS - I spent so much time on this post, I made a PDF version of it that is easier to read.

Things You See While Running

So I've become something of a distance runner over the last year.  It's a pretty good sport, really clears your mind after a long day at work.  However, if you're going to run over the winter, you're going to have to do some running after dark.  If you're going to do some running after dark in Baltimore, you're going to have to run towards the harbor.

So it's winter, it's probably pretty chilly, so the harbor promenade is essentially deserted.  However, one of the unique experiences of running on the chilly, deserted harbor promenade is that every so often you run through a break-up.  Literally, you'll come up behind a couple walking together.  You're not really paying attention, but when you get close you can feel the tension in the air.  It's pretty clear that you're definitely interrupting.  You probably startle them as you pass, but it's over quickly enough - for you.

This has probably happened a half-dozen times or so for me.  I think it's a damn shame.  On a fall evening the harbor is really quiet, the air is crisp, it's really a nice place for a stroll.  But there's no one out there but me and the occasional couple breaking up.   I guess you see a lot of people walking their dogs too.  But my point is, it's a shame that people that get outside and enjoy the night a little more.  It's not nearly as dangerous as you think (at least down near the harbor).  Don't wait until you're breaking up with your significant other, get outside for a walk!

A Great Time to NOT Work in Finance

I've been really busy at work lately, so I haven't been following the financial crisis as much as I normally would.  However, I have to say that it has shaken the very bedrock of my beliefs in economics and what constitutes a good economic policy.  But what I have seen has really made me happy that when I graduated from college I started work as an engineer, not a financial analyst.

It's a sobering time for everyone, The Guardian (a UK newspaper) agrees with me:  The City's Greatest Lie was Convincing Us We Were All Rich.  Replace "The City" with "Wall Street" and you have the American equivalent.  Henry Porter of The Guardian sums up a lot of what I've been feeling lately:

"...[W]e were told we were living through an epic boom many people who were paying attention and did not borrow heavily felt no better off."

When you look at it that way, the lie that we were told is pretty obvious.  Perhaps I'm just too cautious or risk-averse or (as I like to think) I am not easily swayed by marketing; but for whatever reason I've basically managed to not end up exposed to this crisis.  Sure, my 401(k) is hurting a little, but I cut my exposure to MBS to a level that I can live with in mid-March and besides, I'm young.  All I'm doing right now is building a base that will earn for me over the next 30-40 years.  So if stocks drop in value and remain stagnant for awhile it just means that I get more for my money.  I plan to be debt-free in February, which will allow me to amass assets more quickly.  I've kept a fair portion of my savings in cash or CD's because I decided I wanted flexibility with the money, so I haven't lost value there.

The hardest part of personal finance is the ego thing.  I'm not getting a great return on my money and it's very difficult admitting that I'm just not smart enough to figure out how to do that.  Well, I'm probably smart enough, but I don't have the time and dedication to do it.  So I have to accept that.  In my opinion personal finance is way too emotionally charged to be approached rationally.  It feels an awful lot like gambling in the way you react to investment gains or losses, or at least how I react to them.  I'd like to figure out a better way to divorce myself from those feelings, but until I do I have to be very careful about the investment decisions I make.

So that's basically how I've ended up with little direct exposure to the financial crisis.  I don't own a home.  I don't have any variable interest rate debt.  The little debt I do have could be paid off from savings if necessary.  The debt payments I make could be greatly reduced if necessary, but I'd rather just make the payments since the point where I will be debt-free is so near.

This is the lie that we, the American public, were sold.  The financial position that I am in is so crazy that almost no one can relate to it.  Why keep your money in a savings account when you can open a brokerage account?  Don't you know that historical stock market returns are way better than savings account interest?  If not the stock market, buy a house!  Don't you know about the tax deduction?

Those personal finance advisors seem like they know a lot.  They've doctored all sorts of numbers to show how you can expect 8-10% annual returns.  I'm not saying that they are outright lying, they put the assumptions in there, but they are also acutely aware of human psychology and how people fail to properly evaluate the fine print.  Most people haven't read about the different biases associated with lazy measurements of stock market returns.  They don't understand the difference between real increases and nominal increases.  Worst of all, they don't LOOK for them.  For some reason, there seem to be a lot of people that, when presented with a good deal, ask "Where do I sign?" instead of "What are you getting out of this?"

Ask yourself, why does Yahoo! Finance provide you with all those updated stock quotes?  It's not out of the kindness of their hearts, it's because it presents an opportunity for show advertisements.  They write articles on personal finance to promote more individual people investing.  It's not because individual investing is good (statistically proven to be a terrible, terrible idea and probably a destruction of wealth), it's because individual investing is a profit center for some companies.

You have to realize, the information you get is provided by self-interested parties.  All those people telling you that buying a house was a great idea probably had horse in that race.  Did your home-owning friends tell you to go buy something?  Is it possible that some small part of their desire to see you follow in their footsteps was to validate their own decisions?

As far as I can tell, trying to actively manage your personal finances for profit is a loser's game.  A vast number of resources exist solely to convince you otherwise.  Just walk by the personal finance section at Barnes & Noble.  Don't buy the hype.  In the words of Tyler Durden, "You are not a beautiful and unique flower."  You're just as dumb as every other slob who has received sub-par investment returns when guiding his own investments.  Sure, everyone knows a relative or a friend of a friend who got rich directing their own investments, but I'd guess that statistically it doesn't happen.  Statistics are how we tell the difference between things that are true, things that might be true, and things that are definitely false.  It takes quite a compromise of ego to admit that statistics apply to you, but it's true.

Which brings me back to the financial crisis.  A few years ago I bought the analysis that these giant financial institutions had gotten really good at handling risk.  They had very sophisticated models for pricing risk and they were doing a good job of it.  The problem in that statement is that it assumes a number of things that we now know to be false:

1)  The guys making the models are really smart.

2)  Counter-party surveillance works.

3)  People understood what they trading.

#1 is clearly wrong.  Ask any engineer that graduated in the last 10 years.  Up until maybe this year we were kicking ourselves for not getting into finance.  It pays so much better than engineering and all of the classes at school were so easy.  The guys making the models were just smart enough to convince their management that they knew what they were doing.  If the management team didn't come up through that division they probably didn't know enough to really dig into the models.  I would guess that they compensated for this (if they bothered digging deeper at all) by asking a subject-matter expert that they trusted or by comparing themselves to industry standards.  Those are pretty well accepted ways for doing things like that, but I think we can all see the problems with that.  It's a great way to breed group-think and systemic problems.

#2 is wrong because of the sorts of people you have doing this work.  It's pretty clear that the counter-parties weren't keeping a close enough eye on each other.  The problem is, again, that managers are paid to make deals.  I'm sure risk managers are a pain in the ass and generally seen as an obstacle to getting work done.  Besides, how can you judge a company poorly for using the same "best-of-industry practices" that your institution follows?

#3 makes me sad.  It seems obvious that you shouldn't get involved in things that you don't understand, but it sounds like that pretty much happened all the time.  People buying mortgage-backed securities just because of their credit rating?  Seriously?

Maybe I'm crazy, but buying things you don't understand is a terrible, terrible idea.  I can't believe people bought homes without considering what might happen to their payments under a variety of circumstances.  Everyone believed the lie that they were rich and acted like they could afford to lose a lot of money.  We didn't read the fine print and now we're all fucked.  And it's everyone's fault, it was the same problem at the top as at the bottom.  We got too lazy too really do our homework, we got used to a rising tide lifting our boat for us, so we didn't do the work.

There is only one way that wealth is created - produce more value than you consume.  We haven't been doing that for the last few years, so now we really have to tighten our belts and move forward.  Just like any person teetering on the edge of insolvency we have to budget carefully, buy only the essentials, and pay down the debt.

I'm sorry America, we're not as rich as you've been told.  The government is not going to be able to provide all the things you'd like them to.  You're going to have to pay higher taxes to get the things we already get from the government.  You're going to have to stop bitching and start saving.  You're going to have to admit that there's no shortcuts to saving for retirement.  You've got to stop trying to goose results in the short term and start thinking of stocks you purchase as things you'd like to hold for years.

It kind of sucks, but it's what being an adult is all about.  You don't get everything you want and you have to be happy with what you've got.  Because if you don't, you're going to drag us all down.

And if you work in the financial services industry, try to stop contributing to the problem.  Seriously, you guys get paid a shit-load of money, try adding enough value to justify that paycheck.

Homeless Shelters for Muslim Women

This morning WYPR had a really interesting story about homeless shelters in Baltimore for Muslim women.  It sounds like a very under-served population, at least from the fact that they are always full and always have a waiting list.  I wanted to find out some more about the shelter (and the other two small shelters in Baltimore), but it seems like they don't have much of a web-presence.  I suppose that's not surprising considering that they have to sell food on the streets to make the monthly rent on their shelter.

I did find an older Washington Post article that mentions this shelter, an article from something called the Muslim Link from when the shelter opened in 2007, and a blog post that basically calls Muslims big whiners for feeling uncomfortable in Christian-run shelters.  The blog post does raise a valid question about the possible hypocrisy of a Muslim-based shelter.  Basically, the blogger's argument is that if the problem is that Christian-run shelters proselytize too much and make women of other faiths uncomfortable, the solution is not creating a different sort of faith-based shelter.  Well, that's the blogger's argument stated in a less frenzied and rational tone - overall they're very upset that a minority group wants to be treated differently.  Either way, I don't think it is very good criticism.

I would, instead, approach the problem as follows: you have devout Muslim women who feel that the policies and standards of most homeless shelters violate tenets of their faith.  These women have nowhere to go, they may not be legal residents, and there may be children involved.  I think that anyone can agree that the first priority should be to help these women get back on their feet, recover from the emotional trauma they've experienced, and become productive members of society.  Because, and here's the great part, anyone and everyone can become an American.  That's what's great about this place.  America is what you make it, literally.  Every generation we get to reinvent ourselves, every American has just as much right as any other American to contribute to the "American Culture."  

So these women are Americans who need help, I say you have to keep your eye on the ball here - help women get into a stable situation THEN you can worry about "freeing" them from what you judge to be an out-dated belief system and adopt fully "Western" values.  Don't get me wrong, I'm as big on blind religious faith being detrimental to society as the next east coast, liberal-leaning, over-educated blogger, but if these women only feel comfortable going to a shelter that is run by a mosque or Islamic organization, then I think we should encourage that.

Anyway, I'm thinking I might try to find a way to help out these shelters.  Yes, I know that Muslim organizations make a lot of people uncomfortable; worries about radicalization, trouble with integration into Western society, blah, blah, blah.  All the more reason for some mainstream American charities to get involved.  The more integrated into the larger charity structure these organizations are, the more transparent their leadership and financing must become.  Plus, I imagine that knowing that the shelter is supported by the larger society would make these women feel more accepted by society.  Or not.  I would still measure it a success if my donation helped a battered woman get out of an abusive situation.

This is NOT Journalism

Over the past year I've been asking myself a question - Has CNN.com always been this depressingly terrible or is this a recent development?  First off, all of their articles are apparently written for third-graders by middle-school students.  Secondly, entertainment "news" takes up a distressing portion of their "Top Stories."  They have also started the annoying habit of giving you the top three or four "Story Highlights" whenever you click on a story.  Apparently if you don't have the time or reading comprehension skills to finish their three paragraphs (which usually add up to like 8 sentences), you can read the PowerPoint version of the story.

Occasionally, when nothing at the New York Times or the Washington Post catches my eye I may become sickly curious about what drivel CNN is broadcasting.  Today, I feel they have reached a new low with the story Review: John Oliver gets laughs out of 'Terrifying Times'.  It's a review of some stand-up comedy performed by a Daily Show "correspondent."  It is also possibly the most poorly-written review I've ever seen.

It starts with the Story Highlights:

• AP: "Daily Show" correspondent John Oliver's "Terrifying Times" hilarious
• Oliver: Wind-farming a bust - "Wind has been horrifically overfarmed"
• Best way to emotionalize news: Score it to power ballads, says Oliver

Seriously.  Someone read the review, determined that if you took nothing else away from this review, you would want to learn those three things.  Let's deconstruct those bullet points:

1. This is a clutch bullet point here.  Someone's been doing their PowerPoint.  Count the facts that you can learn from that: 1) We didn't do independent journalism, but we subscribe to the AP Wire.  2) This is somehow linked to the "Daily Show," that show is popular and will inspire positive feelings in most people.  3) The subject of this article is John Oliver.  4) He has a show/movie/book called "Terrifying Times."  5) The show/movie/book is funny.
2. Oh shit!  We put every single fact into the first bullet.  How about we just take one of his jokes and make it a bullet?  Now, let's rephrase it to take away the timing and comedic value...
3. Well, we already ruined the best punch line in bullet #2, but there's a 3 bullet minimum... did he say anything else funny?

Now that we're past that insult to our intelligence, let's take a look at why it's so insulting that Frazier Moore has a job writing reviews, much less for a national wire service.  The article is just terrible.  It's so bad, I don't think I've made it all the way through yet.  Why not?  I got to the part where it just devolved into quoting Oliver over and over.  Here's the thing, half of stand-up comedy is delivery and timing - a transcript is unlikely to work as well.  So when Moore starts paraphrasing the jokes you can imagine how that affects the quality of the article.

This is not a review of a stand-up routine, this is a summary, and a shitty one at that.  I mean, I edited my high school newspaper.  If someone had brought me this and told me it was their review, I wouldn't have been that surprised.  We were a really small school, the journalism teacher was too burned out from teaching to care, and we took anyone we could get to write anything for the paper.  I would have had to accept the article, rewrite the entire thing, and publish it under the writer's byline.  I would, however, expect that most high school newspapers are able to produce more analysis in their reviews.

Perhaps Moore thought that by pointing out that Oliver is generally on target with his humor counts as analysis.  Perhaps Moore thought "Hey, people don't want thoughtful analysis, they want to know what the jokes were so that when their co-workers are discussing it tomorrow they won't miss the pop culture reference."  That's probably pretty likely I suppose, the general tone of CNN.com is that there is nothing worse that being mildly out of touch with pop culture (the thinking man's solution to this problem is The Onion AV Club's "The Hater" blog - stay in touch with pop culture by reminding yourself of your superiority to pop culture).

Now it would be pretty easy to look up some more of Frazier Moore's work, according to Wikipedia he has been the AP's TV critic since 1992, but I'm going to admit that I'm too lazy to do that (yes, Frazier Moore has a Wikipedia article - he pretty much must have written that himself, right?  No one's like "Hey, you know what would make a good Wikipedia article?  A short bio of the AP's TV critic!").  Maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt, everyone phones one in once in awhile.  Perhaps he literally phoned that one in, but he was using a Verizon cell phone and all his insightful analysis was lost when the call was dropped.

Anyway, it just offends me that someone can write that poorly and still be employed as a professional writer.  I suppose being a TV critic is a tough job.  I mean, the man's probably watched a lot of bullshit in the 16 years, perhaps he's started to believe that television has succeeded and America really is that dumb.  Perhaps he's right.  That's probably what scares me more than anything - not that CNN is so terrible, but that they aren't losing money.  Why isn't capitalism working?!?  Someone has to be able to do this better!

Next time on "I Hate CNN" - Lou Dobbs is a Terrible, Terrible, Populist Moron.

An anecdote

The other day I had one of those experiences that makes you say "wow, this is a semi-interesting anecdote that, if spun the right way, really illuminates the modern human experience."  When this happens to a free-lance journalist, the Bat-phone starts ringing at Slate.com.  When this happens to me, I post about it on my blog.

The other day I got a pretty scary voicemail on my cell phone from BGE.  "The account linked to this phone number will be denied service unless payment is made immediately."  Now, I was pretty certain that I hadn't accidentally forgotten to pay the gas and electric bill for the last few months, but that isn't the kind of message you ignore.

So I call the phone number that they mention in the message, enter my account number, and learn that my bill has been paid in full (just as I thought).  Nonetheless, that voicemail was a mystery and I'd rather not have my electricity accidentally turned off and have to explain to my roommates why all their food is rotting in the fridge.

Quick divergence - anyone else hate how hard it is to get ahold of BGE when you want to talk to a person?  First you have to wait until normal business hours, then you have to find the secret number on the BGE website.

Step 1 - Do not visit the page headlined "Contact Us."  That just leads you to one of those web forms that allows BGE to conveniently ignore you.  Seriously, there should be a special kind of purgatory (yes, just purgatory, this isn't that big of a sin) dedicated to companies that don't publish a phone number at all, just a web form for questions.  Have you ever been looking for information, run into one of those web forms and though "Hey!  This will make my life easier!  Instead of finding the information I need right now or talking to someone with that information, I can send a message into a black hole of accountability!"

Step 2 - Click on the "Customer Service" heading instead.

Step 3 - Careful!  You can try the 410-685-0123 number, but when I did it just rang for awhile and then went to someone's voicemail.  Yeah, like someone saying "Hey this is , leave a message and I'll get back to you."  No way to know if that's actually BGE.

Step 4 - Try calling 800-685-0123; after convincing the computer that you didn't accidentally call that number instead of the automated bill-payment-by-phone or balance-inquiry-by-phone number, you can be put on hold and eventually talk to a real person.

Is it me or was that too hard?  Here's my rule of thumb, if a company says that they're dedicated to customer service, but it takes me >5 minutes to get a representative on the line, they're full of shit.  Open challenge to all companies: I want to go from Google to talking to one of your representatives in 5 minutes or less.  This isn't rocket science, it's hiring a bunch of people to answer phones.

Ok, back to the story:  So it turns out that the account that was about to be shut off wasn't mine, but it was linked to my phone number.  Apparently whoever had signed up for the account had done it years ago, before  giving up the phone number that I now have on my cell phone.  This led me to think, what do I really know about this person who used to have my phone number:

• Their name is Wade or Wayne or something that starts with a W (based on the wrong number calls I got for a surprisingly long time.  I think I got a couple within the last six months).
• They have lived in the same location for at least 5.5 years (that's how long I've had this phone number).
• Based on the speech pattern of the people who inadvertently reached me, they are a lower-income, probably African-American, Baltimore native.  This is based on my aggregate impression over many wrong numbers.
• The are about to get their gas and electric shut off for non-payment.
• They aren't going to get a phone call to warn them.

There's an odd asymmetry in this relationship, I know a few things minor details about this guy's life but have no way to contact him.  He knows nothing about me, but can very easily reach me - he knows my phone number after all.

A Short Post Gone Long

Lately I haven't had a lot to say about much of anything, but I do have a few short things to say, so I've gathered them all into one post:

1) Wikimapia is about 6,000 times as much fun to edit as wikipedia. I'm quite proud of the fact that I have made a significant contribution to the world's knowledge of southeastern Wyoming geography.

2) If a recipe ever advises you to "wrap the cinnamon sticks, cloves, and the remaining bay leave in cheesecloth and tie it with a string to create a spice bag," ignore it. Who's got cheesecloth and string in their kitchen? Now, if you're like me, you've probably got coffee filters and a stapler. Yeah, it totally works.

3) According to my little sister (who is a manager at a 2700-sow commercial hog farm) there is a foolproof way for spotting the illegal aliens. 1) They have a really, really Anglophone a name but barely speak English and 2) they frequently misspell their name. This actually happens. (Alternative method: they tell you about walking from Guatemala and going three days without water.) She says that HR sends them the workers and the managers are just expected to manage and not question their workers' status. That's some courageous corporate leadership - "We can't compete because everyone else uses illegals; so the corporate strategy committee has come up with a plan we call 'taking the low road.'"

It's not that I dislike immigration. I actually think that we need to liberalize immigration AND step up enforcement at the same time. It's not fair to companies that actually care about not contributing to organized identity thefts rings.

Corporation - "We need these workers! No Americans will take these jobs because they're hard/dangerous/mind-numbingly boring/in rural Oklahoma!"
Rational Individual - "Actually, what you mean is that no American will take that job for the wages you offer, the problem is that you need to raise wages."
Corporation - "We pay a competitive wage compared to our industry."
Rational Individual - "But you admit your entire industry can't find enough legal employees. Maybe you all need to raise wages."
Corporation - "That would raise expenses! We're in a low-margin business!"
Rational Individual - "Then perhaps you need to raise prices or become more efficient."
Corporation - "We can't raise prices! We're a commodity item! And we've already pressed efficiency as far as we can!"
Rational Individual - "Well, then here's what I suggest you do: go out of business. You're a net welfare loss to society. You're missing the point of capitalism - crappy enterprises fail. If you can't succeed within the rules, then admit that you suck and get on with life."
Corporation - "But think of the workers that would lose their jobs!"

The conversation ends there because the Rational Individual has given up on the Corporation and is off to efficiently allocate some capital.

Let's be clear here, I don't hate corporations. I hate whiny corporations that won't admit that they're bad at their business and instead of spending money fixing their problems, they spend money on lobbying politicians to tilt the playing field towards them.

Here's a handy reminder for business people out there thinking about investing in lobbyists: government is society's overhead cost. You hate overhead costs, right? So stop giving money to lobbyists and political action committees. Just because it's an industry standard doesn't make it a good idea.

4) Paolo Nutini is pretty good. My roommate discovered him through iTunes free song of the day. Paolo Nutini is not Italian. He is not related to Nutella. He's actually Scottish and a pretty good singer. I'm a big fan of the title track of his debut album - "these streets." I am kind of freaked out by the fact that he was only 19 when this album was recorded, but I'll still recommend it.

5) And finally, an item that I know my friend is probably already complaining about in his blog - Baltimore passed a city-wide smoking ban in public places! I, on the other hand, am psyched. I love breathing non-carcinogenic air and yes, I do believe that it jives with a libertarian/classic liberal viewpoint. It's okay to have the government regulate to keep people from hurting other people. Second-hand smoke hurts other people. Only 10 months until the ban takes effect!

Rambling Thoughts on Music

What, you might ask, am I doing publishing an occasional blog for more or less two months without recommending a music album? Do I not believe that my music tastes are above average and that I have a special insight into the sort of music you ought to own?

Fear not, I am prepared to recommend a new album to you: Eyes Open from Snow Patrol.

If you visit their webpage, you're likely to notice something that I've just discovered: those dudes really, really look like a bunch of guys from England. The haircuts, the pasty white complexions, even the jackets. It's pretty uncanny (ok, so they're actually from Ireland, but how am I supposed to know about Irish haircuts?).

Anyway, you may remember Snow Patrol from their unbelievably good song "Chocolate" from a couple years ago (off of the album Final Straw). I'm sure that not everyone agrees with this characterization, many people liked "Run" better, but what's the point of having a soap box if you don't use it?

The point of this entry, however, is that if you haven't heard the album Eyes Open, then you should give it a chance. It may not be as good as Final Straw, but then again, I may be swayed by the existence of the song "Chocolate." I believe that was an example of the band playing above their level. A statistical anomaly.

I think this happens a lot to bands; for example, The Postal Service. Their original album, Give Up, is unbelievable. It is probably in my top few favorite albums. But I hope and pray that they don't release more material. It's just going to depress me. Clearly, it can be no better than Give Up...and I believe it could be a lot worse. Look at it this way, have you listened to Death Cab for Cutie (Ben Gibbard's band)? It's just a disappointing experience if you've listened to The Postal Service. They really need to quit while their ahead before they release another album where they try to rekindle the magic and their wikipedia article starts talking about how they used to be good.

Oddly enough, it seems that I've set out to write a quick recommendation of Eyes Open and completely failed to give you a good reason to buy the album. So here you go: I recommend that you check out the song "Set the Fire to the Third Bar." It's a spooky, haunting duet featuring Martha Wainwright. Be prepared to dislike it the first 2 to 5 times you hear it, but after that, you're going to have to buy the CD (or download it from iTunes).