Broken Windows, Roe, & Economic Fatherhood

I just finished a new post, but since I started it back in early December, it was published in the archives. If you're interested in reading it (it's about the various competing theories for the 1990's crime rate decline - sounds interesting, doesn't it?) click here.

If that sounds too heavy, try the Line Rider game...

Imus Returns

It's not easy to defend the I-Man's "nappy-headed ho" comment, so I won't. But I will defend him against charges of being a shock jock. If you believe Don Imus is a shock jock, you haven't been listening the last few years.

Where else on radio can you hear:

• Long, insightful interviews with noted historians like Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael Beschloss
• Pundits from the Left (Frank Rich, Paul Begala) and the Right (Laura Ingraham, Mary Matalin) in interviews that are far more dignified than the shoutfests on cable TV
• A show that reveres serious books. Oprah may have picked The Road for her book club this year, but Imus was raving about Cormac 15 years ago, after All the Pretty Horses came out
• Finally - and this is so rare in media today - a (nearly) actor-free zone. The only actor (besides assorted Sopranos) that has appeared on the show is Steve Martin - who may have first gained fame by putting a fake arrow in his head, but is also a playwright, a novelist, and a New Yorker contributor
• - is is a show that will spend 25 minutes talking to Goodwin about how Lincoln managed his cabinet - and never once mention Angelina Jolie's adoption practices. Tom Friedman can tout his new book on globalization - but Madonna doesn't get to tout her new children's book.

So, if you're an NPR listener who believes, having never listened to the show, that Imus is some sort of Redneck Stern - check out his show and decide for yourself...

Busy? Then Don't Go To This Site

The Straight Dope answers all of the important questions, like: Do birds pee? Why do people clink their glass when they toast? Is Popeye's nemesis Bluto or Brutus? What's in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction? Why do Corn Pops come in a silver bag? And what the hell is the Pompatus of Love?

What is "Free Time"?

Over the last ten years or so, friends of mine would occasionally find an email from me in their Inbox, with an attachment. The attachment was a carefully researched short essay on some random topic – Eli Manning’s passing stats, why the British tend to produce great bands and Americans great solo performers, a comparison of John Adams’ and Thomas Jefferson’s place in history.

One day a friend of mine, a frequent recipient of the sports essays, called me up.

“You know those emails you send, with the essays attached?” he asked.

“Yes?” I said, expecting some kind words about them.

“Can you stop doing that?”

So I did. But I didn’t stop writing them. Eventually I figured I might as well start a blog. And here it is.

Is there any theme to this blog? The primary topics are fairly mainstream things – sports, music, politics, literature, history. But the thing that tends to get me started on a topic is when everybody is thinking one way, and ignoring all of the evidence that they could be wrong. I then get interested in the contrarian view.

My mission statement is to provoke a "Huh". Not the interrogatory "Huh?", which roughly translates to "What the hell are you talking about?"; but the exclamatory "Huh", which means (and think Dana Carvey as Johnny Carson here), "I did not know that."