Pie Fight

"Each new wave is an extra penny on our rates"

From LSE's quite interesting online introductory seminar to social policy, the vehicle for which is a look at housing policy in Spitalfields from Victorian times until today:

The poor of the area were not         the only constituency for whom this building was intended. It also testified         to East End Gentiles that the Jewish community could provide for its own,         acting as a rebuttal to accusations that each new wave of Jewish migrants,         fleeing the persecution of the pogroms, equated to an extra penny on the         poor rates.

The idea that "each new wave of Jews adds a penny to our taxes" is a brilliant example of  how easily the truth can be  trumped - and indeed trampled - by clever rhetoric.

In this case, the rhetoric is expecially good, as it takes a perceived problem, and attaches to it a result that people can really identify with. The thing about perceived problems such as immigration is that while much of the public often feels a sense of unease at them, because it's new and it's change and that's somehow threatening, though very rarely know what the results of this new activity (immigration or whatever else) is going to be. So the clever demagogue (hello Daily Mail) fills in the blank for them.

What I'd like to be able to do is fill in the blanks in a more positive, truthful, and no less powerful manner.

On this same note, I wonder if part of the rejection of Enoch Powell was that he overstated his case - ie people knew there were going to be no rivers of blood, so saw him as too far outside the mainstream. Did he overposition himself? I don't really know enough about that chunk of Britain's history to say.

The worse the conditions, the more severe the consequences

IN a discussion of society's responses to 19th century housig crises in areas such as Spitalfields, I've just read this statement: It was widely believed that lifestyles and living conditions were       linked.

Are they implying that we know longer believe this, or that if we do we are wrong? Can't tell - it may just be slightly loose writing. What I would argue, though, is that living conditions, lifestyles and the effects of those lifestyles are very closely linked, and that we shouldn't dismiss the importance of that third element. Living conditions can encourage certain behaviours that are self-destructive in the long run, but people may engage in those types of behaviour regardless of living conditions. The well-off do plenty of cocaine, for instance. The difference is that poor living conditions and poverty not only encourage certain detrimental behaviours (eg a lack of interest in education), they can be the bear trap that you almost inevitably step in when engaging in behaviours that people from all living conditions and backgrounds engage in. To take the educational example again, I was able to fuck around for a few key years without it really hurting me, and GW Bush was able to float by for his entire life, with his wealth and power protecting him the whole way. But a kid on a Hackney estate, who comes from a family that doesn't value education - well, not only is she more likely than me to fuck around for too long, the definition for her of 'too long' is about one million years shorter than it was for Bush.

The worse the conditions, the more severe the consequences. (Hey - it's just like being in nature!)

That's why a big part of being middle class is about having the security to dick around a bit. It's not that scornful definition of being afraid to dick around at all. (Though people do end up in that trap.)

Size matters

Yglesias on why bigger is often better when it comes to service delivery of social security programmes.

Letter to a professor

Hi

This is across the mists of time, I know, but I'm a former student of yours, and am now applying to graduate school. Despite the fact that I finished my BA almost 10 years ago, the universities I'm applying to  require me to have an academic reference.

I have to admit that, of the professors I had at UGA, you are one of only two who I distinctly  remember myself, so I really can't imagine that you would recall me at all.  The course I took from you was Orientalism, and I think it was in your first year at UGA. It was a great course - a real revelation to someone who been educated in the southeast and hadn't yet read much of anything outside the traditional western canon.  My main memories of the course are being stunned and thrilled by the arguments of Edward Said and the prose of Chinua Achebe, and of  writing a fictionalised account of  the experiences of two Victorian-era North Africans temporarily living in London. It was the first bit of creative writing I'd ever done in my life, and may well have eventually influenced my choice of career. (I'm now a writer and editor living, perhaps ironically, in London.) My most profound memory of the course, though, is how unadulteratedly exciting it was. Good things happen when a bunch of bright, curious kids are introduced to great subject matter by an inspiring teacher. It was without a doubt the most stimulating course I took at UGA, for which I thank you.

As I say, I'm now a writer/editor in the UK (to which I've immigrated for the foreseeable future).  I currently work for a children's charity, researching and writing  reports on issues affecting young people  in the UK,  and was lucky enough to have a short, non-fiction book published last year. But I want to shift my career so that I more  directly influence the policies that shape life here in Blighty. To do that, I need to do a Masters degree in Social Policy (I'm hoping to go on to do a PhD, as well). But to get into grad school I need at least one academic reference.

I know this is a bit of a blast from the past, but if you were able to oblige with a reference, I would be extremely appreciative. I don't know if it would help to stir your memory or not (or if that's too big of a long shot) but there's a (disturbingly poor) photo of me here. What resemblance it bears to the me of 10 years ago, though, I cannot fairly say. If it would help, I could also tell you more about myself and the course I took. (I know I did very well in it, particularly on the story I wrote, and I remember a guy named Peter throwing a party for the class at the end of the quarter.)

I know you're very busy and that 10 years is a long time, but I hope you're able to oblige. If so, I will send you the  reference forms for the  colleges I'm applying to (LSE, Goldsmiths and Birkbeck).

I hope everything's going well down there in Georgia. (Oh how I miss all that sunshine!) When looking you up online just now, I stumbled across the now old news about you winning a MacArthur grant, so it would seem that at least that side of life is going more than swimmingly.  (I'm sure you've heard it a thousand times before, but congrats!)

All the best
JD Carpentieri

Now that's what I'm looking for!

CT has a thread on academic books that read like bestsellers. I'm expecting some good reading list material here.

My ultimate goal would be to write something that comes within even fifty miles of making it onto such a list.

Public policy under Labour

The Guardian looks aft and fore.

Class

The NYT has a series up on class in the US. A couple of nifty-o interactive graphics, and what looks to be a good bibliography, but I haven't read any of the articles yet. The piece on health looks very interesting, though: it traces the divergent experiences of three different people who all had heart attacks in the New York around the same time.

Global debunking

Want to know where the global warming deniers get all their information from? George Monbiot follows the path, and the results aren't pretty. In the case of the wingnuts involved, our expecations are understandably low. (Hint to refuseniks: if Lyndon Larouche is on your side, you're probably on the wrong side of the fence.) But why would reputable scientists happily rely on stats from reliable sources, so long as they match their prejudices? Why would scientists such as David Bellamy do this sort of thing? As Monbiot writes:

It is hard to convey just how selective you have to be to dismiss the evidence for climate change. You must climb over a mountain of evidence to pick up a crumb: a crumb which then disintegrates in the palm of your hand. You must ignore an entire canon of science, the statements of the world's most eminent scientific institutions, and thousands of papers published in the foremost scientific journals. You must, if you are David Bellamy, embrace instead the claims of an eccentric former architect, which are based on what appears to be a non-existent data set. And you must do all this while calling yourself a scientist.

An excellent column.

Looking back on the season

All this is coloured by my lack of long-term status and thus emotional investment in club football, but all through the season I couldn't help but feel that I'd prefer to support a smaller team than Arsenal.

It's not just because the gunners weren't on top and made fools of themselves against United. Truth is, I felt at least a smidge of the same thing last year, when they were untouchable in England (while having no touch in Europe - surely there's got to be a good joke somewhere in there). Supporting a giant team who consistently do well is... well, it's a difficult to explain. It's a bit too plastic and grand. Most significnantly, i think, it's not at all representative of real life; it's about supestardom and celebrity and being a flash geezer with big cars and all the babes - I think there's something in being a fan of a superteam that gives their supporters the big dick syndrome, the feeling that they're driving sportscars and being big studs. And we all seem to have this misconception that that's what life's about - and somehow I hate to see it as part of fandom.

Sure, I know we can argue that sport is about escape. To a large degree, I'm very sympathetic to the idea that life's miserable enough without supporting Rochdale. It's a fair point. But there's something tawdry about supporting a big side primarily, something distinctly un-noble about it. It smacks of being one of those talent-less boobs who thinks that ambition, shrillness and personal venom makes them 'special' enough to be a star following a  stint on reality tv.

Trash talking at Trafford and swaggering in Highbury - they're both deeply unpleasant phenomena. But maybe I need to give it more time. What comes up does must, I hope, come down. Old Arsenal supporters have every right to revel in their team's brilliant play over the last three seasons, having suffered through Hornby-related years of mediocrity and (worse) ugliness. When the team does suffer an inevitable slide, how will young fans take it? That's a particularly good question for United fans. Funny how almost every single person of my generation born in greater Manchester was born closer to Old Trafford than to any of the eight or so other grounds in the area. Or perhaps every one of them was born into an Man U family. Funny that.

So who can I go for? Sadly, there's no one round these ways. Leyton Orient's across the Lea, and that's not part of the world I can identify with. Maybe when we move down south, bu Crystal Palace and Charlton are both a little ways out. Still, if Palace go down the same year we move down, it'd be fun to watch some first division football. What I'd really like is a good Hackney team: the Dalston Demolishers or the Haggerston Hoors, perhaps. In the meantime, it's just cruddy old Arsenal...

On that note, why is it that they can't win in Europe? I think it's that fast passing thing they do: it's so perfect when it's on, and it really gets defenses discumbobulated, but great defences are just too good for it. Bayern Munich never gave Arsenal an inch, and it kept them from moving the ball into the middle just at the top of the penalty area: every time Arsenal tried to get it in there, they were met with three or four defenders. I saw it last year, and I saw it again this year too. If Arsenal are going to succeed agains the most tactically astute defences, they need to be able to open them up by mixing their attack up. Going over the top some (if they could do it successfully) would force defences to deal with more than one style of play, and might help break them down.

If they do want to be able to open up the top - and I should note that Wenger said that poor pitch conditions in the winter months made it hard to play the fast passing game even in England - Michael Owen isn't their man. It's a short, quick team, Wenger's. Perhaps someone tall? Is Henry capable of using his height to win headers for his teammates?

Bit here, bit there...

John Holbo on a review of Jeffrey Sachs' poverty book.