Hypothetical Bias

A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man

Hypothetical Bias welcomes guest blogger Mark Holmes, a health economist at UNC-Sheps (a branch campus of the UNC in Sheps, NC). A few hours after declining my hypo-bias invitation, we enjoyed his first post.

I'm here in Charleston, SC. After sitting through a few hours of a SSC of the SAFMC meeting (if you don't know what that is, what are you doing at this blog?), I receive this email from Mark:

two things i know about you:

1. you like wikipedia
2. you like TV

i think you like the simpsons.

this is funny. i think it's a cromulent link for hypothetical-bias

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made-up_words_in_The_Simpsons

My SSC-mates were irritated by my out-loud laughter the rest of the meeting (by the way, mark writes in lower case ... like e.e. cummings and bell hooks, that's how you'll know it is his post).

While Mark sends funny emails, he is, perhaps, best known for taking me to a UNC-UK basketball game in Chapel Hill and forbidding me from wearing my UK t-shirt. Nevertheless, the Wildcats won big over the Sean May-less 'Heels. We also saw Binghamton almost beat Carolina during the what's-his-name-era.

By the way, if you don't know my spouse, she is a grown-up version of Lisa Simpson.

And yes, the SSC meeting left me brain deadly.

Update: Hypothetical Bias was subsequently subtitled: A Cromulent Economics Blog:

Cromulent

When schoolteacher Edna Krabappel hears the Springfield town motto, "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man," she comments she'd never heard of the word embiggens before moving to Springfield. Miss Hoover, another teacher, replies, "It's a perfectly cromulent word".

Later in the same episode, while talking about Homer's audition for the role of town crier, Principal Skinner states "He's embiggened that role with his cromulent performance."

Based on the context in which Miss Hoover uses the word cromulent, we can interpret that it means "legitimate" or "appropriate." Based on the way Principal Skinner uses it, it can be interpreted as meaning something similar to "more than acceptable" or "more than adequate," these usages would also (in an assumed lexical context) satisfy Miss Hoover's use of the word. Lisa uses it later in that episode, when instead of telling the truth about Jebediah Springfield, she accepts that the myth and the made-up words have inspirational value.

Both "embiggen" and "cromulent" were quickly adopted and used by Simpsons fans. Cromulent has taken on an ironic meaning, to say that something is not at all legitimate and in fact spurious.

In the 2005 Xbox game Jade Empire, the player meets a man who uses made-up and mispronounced words. When the player confronts the man with this, the man claims that one of the words he used was "cromulent", an obvious reference to The Simpsons.

While this word is rumoured to appear in the Blackadder Series Three episode, "Ink and Incapability," a scan of the posted script shows it not to appear.

"Cromulent" has since appeared in the Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English. (lookup via reference.com.)

I'm in Alaska

Did I mention that I was going to Alaska? First time. I'm attending the American Fisheries Society Annual Meeting in Anchorage all week. Don't laugh. Fish econ is important work. Stop laughing.

I'm president of the Socioeconomics Section of AFS. We have about 100 members in an organization with thousands of biologists. The biologists don't know why we're here. Sometimes we don't either. A long time ago John Maiolo, former chair of Sociology at ECU, told me that if I joined the socioeconomic section of AFS the grant money would start rolling in. He didn't mention WHEN that money might happen. I'm still waiting and now I can't seem to get out of AFS. Thanks John.

We had the section business meeting today. We made a quorum of 10 members about half-way into the meeting. It didn't matter. We don't ever have anything important to vote on anyway. But there are big econ things going on in AFS. Remember this post? Stay tuned ....

And here are some random semi-econ-related thoughts:

• "Business hotels," in this case the Hilton, sure charge a lot of money for internet connections. Wouldn't it be profit maximizing to offer free WiFi like some of the less expensive hotel chains? WiFi prices are about $12/hour and ethernet prices are about $9/day. For something that has a very low marginal cost (about $0?). And free WiFi is not ubiqutous in Anchorage. I was told by the Starbucks barista that a coffee shop a few blocks away has it but no one else. I decided to go ahead and pay $25 for five days of ethernet access from my hotel room.
• I just ate about $50 of seafood (salmon, halibut, crab etc) at the opening reception. Biologists really know how to throw a conference. The best the Southern Econ Association can do is give out zero-priced (economists don't use the word free) bagels for breakfast. There are a lot of "free" events this week, covered, I think, somewhat by the $300 registration fee (much higher than an econ conference).
• The state of NC will cover $55, less than half, of your hotel bill. Thanks guys.
• I wear, pretty much, the same clothes to econ conferences and AFS. The AFS-ers think I dress up and the econ-ers that that I dress down.
• I enjoyed much consumer surplus during my morning walk on the urban park trails in Anchorage. I don't think there are any complaints about not having anywhere to run/bike/walk around town like there is in other same-sized cities that I'm familiar with (read: Wilmington, NC).
• I got on the plane and stowed my bag in the overhead compartment. A guy who had already gotten on the plane said "that's my space." I said "oh, that's your space?" Note that my bag was in the space and he had gotten on the plane before me. Finders keepers, right? Wrong. He said, "yea." I assumed that he "called" the space before me, smiled and put my small bag in a small space to the rear of my seat and shoved my big bag where my feet would have comfortably gone on a 6.5 hour flight. If I was with spine I would have forced the issue, caused a semi-ugly scene, and left my big bag in "his" space. But, alas, I am without spine.

When sunday school isn't enough

UNC offers a minor in Christianity:

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has begun offering a minor in Christianity to help students whom a professor says aren't able, regardless of their faith, to talk seriously about it.

The curriculum called Christianity and Culture is a first for the university and sets a precedent across the nation, said Christian Smith, a UNC-Chapel Hill sociology professor.

Two comments:

1. Do you think she ever gets tired of the "Christian the Christian" jokes? Here's one: "Two Christians walk into a bar ... wait, are you a twin?"
2. A Christian sociologist? Most of the sociologists that I know, and I know alot (including the mother of my kids), are godless heathens (religion is the opiate of the masses and all that? well, they actually believe it).

More from the article:

"Teens don't know a lot about their religious tradition, and that made quite an impression on me," said Smith, who conducted a four-year study on spiritual lives of teens.

"There are lot of students who come from Christian backgrounds. Here's an opportunity for them to learn about their faith's wider tradition and history."

Really, not so bad an idea. They could read some Dan Brown, maybe get a peek at some other ideas: god of love, understanding, compassion, etc.

Baptists and bootleggers / Methodists and the Klan

In the old days, Baptists and bootleggers united to keep alcohol sales illegal and illegal alcohol prices high. These days, conservative Methodists and the Klan unite to make being gay (and etc) socially unacceptable and convert gay (and etc) Methodists to Unitarians (Haywood County prepares for meeting of gay Methodists):

A meeting of gay Methodists in western North Carolina over Labor Day weekend has law enforcement officials preparing for protests from conservative groups and the Ku Klux Klan.

Haywood County Sheriff Tom Alexander met with other officers Thursday to plan for the Sept. 2-5 gathering at the Lake Junaluska Assembly of the Reconciling Ministries Network, a Chicago-based group that wants the United Methodist Church opened to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Christians. The conference is expected to attract about 500 attendees.

Among those planning to protest the meeting are the Cordele, Ga.-based American White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported Friday.

...

Local newspapers have been filled with letters about the conference in recent days. On Sunday, Nesbitt Chapel United Methodist Church in nearby Buncombe County bought a half-page newspaper ad urging "Christian Brothers and Sisters in Christ" to join them in "standing against the pro-homosexual rally" planned for Labor Day weekend.

I envision the sign outside the church: "Nesbitt Chapel welcomes the Klan to Youth Sunday."

CNN: "Big jobs that pay badly"

Anybody want to be an assistant professor in the liberal arts (e.g., economics professor at a "teaching school")? From CNN:

But there are some jobs you should take only if you really love the work because the investment you make to get the job and the hours you keep aren't necessarily commensurate with what you earn.

Not that all careers in this category are necessarily low-paying, at least not by national standards.

But they may require a great deal of time and money in graduate education, offer working conditions that only passion can excuse, and there may be such a long run for the roses that you forfeit prime working and child-bearing years just to achieve a salary that college peers were earning a decade earlier.