The "First" Harvey Weinstein

Robert often wonders why there has been no mainstream media story about Teddy Kennedy being the "first" Harvey Weinstein. After all, the Chappaquiddick story about Teddy and Mary Jo has all the ingredients of the powerful man-vulnerable intern scenario that any journalist might want to explore. Do you have any guesses about why you have not seen such a story?

Update 3/22/18: I just learned tonight (8:57 pm) that we will be seeing a TV movie about Teddy and Chappaquiddick. Maybe someone read our earlier Blogger message?

Poll Data--Again

We have warned our readers in past blogs (Poll Data) to be wary of figures reported to be the results of a public poll until you know how the questions were asked. In USA Today the paper reports the results of a recent poll with the following "table."

"Who wins? What group of Americans will get the most benefits from the tax-cut bill, if one is signed into law?
The poor: 6%
The Middle Class: 17%
The Wealthy: 64% "

It would be helpful to know what dollar value was used (or if any was used) to define the meaning of "the poor" or the other two categories. The paper also reports three "volunteered" categories of Everybody, Nobody, and Undecided/Refused, but do not tell readers how the "volunteered" responses were obtained (were they responses from those who did not answer in terms of the three established categories, or were they in addition to established category responses). This kind of table and this kind of "data" reporting would never make it through an introductory research methods course in sociology, but USA Today thinks it is fine for their readers.

Swamp Rats

Robert noticed in todays newspaper of calls for continued investigations of Trump and associates by Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. The Senator is a frequent guest on evening and Sunday news shows. What is never mentioned by the media is the fact that in the recent past Senator Blumenthal has lied about his service in Vietnam, and his achievements while he was there. As best I could determine, the Senator never was in Vietnam in  any capacity. His main achievement during the Vietnam War was to obtain five deferments from his draft board. Apparently this never bothered the voters in Connecticut who elected him to be their Senator.

I think that the people of Connecticut should get together with the people of Alabama and have a discussion about who is in their swamps.

Update, 12/13/17: The citizens of Alabama have started to drain their swamp. Will the citizens of Connecticut do the same?

Update, 1/29/18: On NPR this morning Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut was calling for the impeachment of Trump, which he has every right to do. But why does the media not give him credit for being a draft evader and for lying about his military service. We need to know who is speaking, whether they had KKK backgrounds or were draft evaders and liars.

Perps' Profile:Early Warnings or Apple Pie

We have identified thirty-six men who have been accused of some form of sexual harassment. In order to get ahead of the rush to judgement we have decided to take a look at their personal and professional lives to see if there are any strong similarities that could serve as "warning signs" of what would come. Working from available public profiles, we looked at their early years as boys and young men, looking for evidence of early troubles at home or at school. We turned next to their post-college years in order to examine their career paths, searching for evidence of ordinary professional lives, or early indications of "young stars" on the move. In short, we looked at the normal profiles of events that occur over the life course and that have been a part of all of their lives.

Concerning age, the Perps are neither randy Millenials nor over-active Octagenarians. They are mostly middle-age men with ages between the upper 40s and mid-60s. This age category is probably closely correlated with their careers and the opportunities they have to oversee those who work with them and for them.

In their early lives, they were mostly raised in conventional middle-class families, often with parents who were both employed in stable careers. We found only one case of what could be called a dysfunctional family. As young adults, only about 30 percent entered into conventional marriages, and as a result there are not many children of these Perp parents.

There is no evidence of extensive early socialization with religion. Only one-third provide any evidence of religious up-bringing, and in these cases 10 Perps report being Jewish and 3 Christian. The absence of information about religious preference in the biographical material suggests that most had little or no religious preference.

There is an indication of involvement in selective early education, usually in so-called Academies aimed at being college-prep schools. Beyond the high school prep years, well over one-half of the Perps (25) obtained a college degree, with less than one-half (11) having graduated from an elite college or university.

The careers of the Perps are primarily in journalism, TV production, and animation. Contrary to expectations, there is no evidence of their having received a "leg up" in their careers or having done anything other than high quality professional work. There is evidence of  their professional achievements in the form of having shows nominated for professional awards. In short, their professional careers reflect continuous efforts to produce high quality journalism, films, or TV shows.

If the Perps are high achievers, they probably enjoyed the high regard of their professional colleagues. Why, then, would they believe that is was acceptable to use their positions to intimidate women working with or for them to act in ways that resulted in sexual harassment? The answer to this question would require an examination of the culture of these workplaces in the entertainment and television industries.

Greed is Good: Use It or Lose It

In a 2014 article published in Sociological Forum (March 2014) we quoted Gordon Gecko, the lead character in the movie Wall Street, who was telling an assembled audience of stockholders that what makes our economy strong and vibrant is "greed." We propose to harness that greed by letting Gordon Gecko be Gordon Gecko, and give him the social honor of recognizing that his wealth and lavish life style do contribute, however indirectly, to the public good. Moreover, we propose to create
entrepreneurial projects or philanthropic gifts for the common good that the Geckos of the world might embrace under a heading of "targeted opportunity philanthropy" (TOP). In this proposal we would link wealthy donors with specific projects like college tuition endowments for talented students from low-income families; support for students to attend non-college technology programs; rebuilding schools in poor neighborhoods; and second-chance programs for school dropouts and ex-offenders.

But, and it is a big but, we propose that a major portion of the accumulated wealth that Gecko does not consume or give away in his lifetime via targeted opportunity endowments must be returned to the public treasury upon his death. In short, use it or lose it. There is much more to this proposal including the creation of a Family Inheritance Court to allocate some of Gecko's unspent wealth to family members. What the proposal prevents is the creation of family dynasties that allows wealth to be transferred across generations.

If you want to know more about our "use it or lose it" proposal we encourage you to read the article in Sociological Forum. 

On being an "outsider": From Ike to Trump

We were recently discussing the possible reasons why the media seem to be so hard on Trump, and why he has responded in kind. Thinking about past presidents it occurred to us that former presidents like Eisenhower, Truman, and Carter also had strained relations with the media. Why would that be the case, and what might it have to do with Trump? Our speculations took us to a view of Eisenhower, Truman, Carter, and Trump as "political outsiders;" that is, they did not have political careers that would have properly "socialized" them for their new job. If you have a political career in Washington, DC, you would have learned about the proper respect that should be shown to media elites, and the conventions of Congress and the proper respect that is shown to persons in various leadership positions.

Lacking this prior political socialization people like "Ike" Eisenhower were treated as a "mental midget" when he first assumed he could be president of Columbia University. How could he possibly become the leader of this elite university when he lacked any academic credentials that might give him credibility with the faculty? Moreover, he had the audacity to want to become President of the United States. The media somehow didn't give him credit for leading the Allied invasion of Europe and driving the German Army out of Western Europe.    

Next we have Harry Truman, who had the misfortune to be Vice President when a beloved President (who was a political careerist) died in office. The press frequently reminded us that Truman was a "haberdasher" from some Podunk town in the Midwest. When they weren't beating up on Truman, the media focused on his daughter Margaret's musical talents, and reported that she had none. Truman's experiences with the media led him to refer to them as "prostitutes of the mind."

And then there is Jimmy Carter, who could not escape the fact that he was a rube peanut farmer, and totally out of his element in Washington. Rarely mentioned was the fact that the "rube" had a degree in nuclear engineering, but then, he talked funny.

So we offer the theory that what Trump has in common with Eisenhower, Truman, and Carter, is that he is a "political outsider" who has not learned the tribal customs of the political and media elites. As an "outsider" he is fair game for the media and the careerist politicians to reject someone who is not a political careerist.

Now it is your turn. See if you can apply this theory to your favorite past presidents.   

Sociology and Science

When Robert was a graduate student his major research professor would often say: There is only one field of sociology that has any chance of having standing as a science. What was it and why? It was demography, and the reason was that they didn't talk to people, they only counted them.

When sociologists interview people or ask them to complete a questionnaire you are learning about their opinions, beliefs, and recollections, all of which are unstable and questionable as real data. The only  possible way out of this dilemma is to measure something that is more stable like a person's education or income, and then compare persons with such "structural" differences on their opinions, beliefs, etc.
Unfortunately, a great deal of sociological research today is based solely on recollections, beliefs, and attitudes, and often comparisons are made about what people report that they believed at different points in times ---not exactly what we would call "hard data." The only solution is to pay less attention to people and what they say, and more attention to the collective products of what people create--that is, their social institutions, like their educational system, or their economy, or their criminal justice system.
The sociological study of social institutions may be the best way to move beyond what people say and to realize some of the advantages of demography.

What is in the swamp: Lobbyists or Bureaucrats?

When Trump was running for President he made  much of his intention to "drain the swamp." Robert had always assumed that he meant a swamp full of lobbyists. In contrast, Carolyn believed that what he had in mind were the thousands of low-level and mid-level bureaucrats that every  new President hires as a way to say "thank you" to his biggest campaign contributors. So we both now believe Trump's "swamp" is filled with the thousands of newly hired people in the State Department, Department of Defense, Commerce Department, and the dozens of other departments that make up the continuing bureaucratic structures of government, those who stay while Presidents come and go. Others may have called Trump's "swamp" by different names, like the "deep state" or the "permanent government," but we now believe that they are all referring to the same thing.

By almost any measure, Trump has been slower than any of the recent Presidents (Obama, Clinton, Bush) in filling top-spot and second-spot jobs at 20 agencies. It is not clear if this represents his "swamp cleaning" efforts or simply poor administration. We would like to get more information on the thousands of positions below the top spots, because this is where we will find evidence of the existence of a permanent government. So, there is more work to be done on this question.

We are back. It is not easy finding the number of bureaucratic-type employees in the federal government. Using the Internet, we found out that there are 2.7 million federal civilian employees, from "janitors to judges" as they put it. We are more interested in how many janitors and judges are employed and what are there salaries. The best we could do was to determine that the "entry level" salary for cabinet and cabinet-ranked officials is $205,700. So, it is back to the drawing board. Please send us your information on these questions, as well as ideas for using the internet to uncover the data that is needed.

Update, 11/18/17. On the swamp-draining front. Tonight's TV news reported great anxiety among employees of the State Department about the possibility of "cuts" in personnel in the near future. A spokesperson for the State Department expressed great concern about these rumors and spoke at great length of the importance of the work done by all members of the State Department to further the goals of the United States. The news reporter also commented that the State Department has 25 thousand employees around the world. That is a lot of bureaucrats in the swamp, which obviously extends beyond DC. Stay tuned!

What is the question?

This post is one of Robert's deep ruminations. Carolyn is much too practical to waste her time on such stuff.

I have been thinking about the "world today ' and have come to several observations.

(1) Most of the mysteries of nature are gone. The only thing left is "Is there life on other planets?" That is an interesting question but not a serious one, because there are no real answers other than hot air speculation that serves only the media. When scientists speak of "life" they are talking about bacteria, not someone with whom you can have a beer.

(2) Climate change is a small mystery, but the climate has been changing long before farting cows and cars. Much of the earth was at one time covered in ice, and the "why" has been accounted for by location of the orbits of the earth and sun. Anyway, the time scale for such conclusions would put you in the same category as a person traveling across the country to buy a lottery ticket everywhere, believing that it will improve their chance of winning.

(3) Beyond the certainty of death, we already know what will kill us and how long it will take. There are no mysteries here.

(4) We know, or believe we know, about other places on the globe and about the people who live in those places. Much of what we know comes from the media shows (why do they do it?) but it does little more than create a context for believing that we are "open" to other cultures and other peoples.
But, what does that mean?

(5) What is left? The impact of the Internet on people and human societies, is still an unknown, and the speculation about impact is in the realm of science fiction, but still interesting. This is the one area where there may be new mysteries, but I doubt that it will ever go beyond "How many friends do I have Facebook?"

Where are the politcal Luddites today?

In the early 1800s, English workers in the cotton mills who were fearful of losing their jobs destroyed their production machinery. They became known as Luddites, and the term is used more generally today to describe those who oppose technological change.

The August 26th issue of The Economist contains an article on the advances in automated and robotized production in the apparel industry. Machines operating without human intervention are now producing rectangular goods (towels, rugs, pillows) without human intervention. Automated production is headed toward apparel with the mass production of T-shirts and other simple apparel items. Nowhere in this article is there any mention of the number of unskilled workers and skilled tailors who will be displaced by automated production. Nowhere in this article is there any mention of labor leaders and politicians who should be the "political Luddites" who are monitoring this development and protecting the interests of workers.

Student Debt--Tell us more.

I find myself being increasingly annoyed with the discussion of student debt--how much it is and how long it will take to pay off. There is debt, and there is student debt. The latter should be viewed as an investment made by a student against future earnings, but it is always presented as some drag on the economy or some indicator of unfairness in the game of life. But I need to know more before I can decide about whether or not student debt is a "problem." Questions: (1) What are the majors of students who leave college with debt? Are they in the potentially high-paying professional programs like medicine, law, and some STEM degrees. Or are they headed toward modest entry-level jobs, or modest paying professions in elementary school teaching, or social work.  (2) What are the socio-economic backgrounds of the debtors, especially parental income. Do they have parents who are professionals with high incomes, or are their parents in occupations with modest incomes?

In short, the student debt syndrome is used to hide important differences among college graduates, and to float proposals such as "make college free" that will great for privileged class students heading to elite schools with high tuitions.

So before we are stampeded by the fear of "student debt " the agencies that collect such data should tell us more and then maybe we can shape proposals that will help those with greatest need.   

FNBT or Fake News Before Trump

In 1999, Earl Wysong and I wrote: "The everyday routine functioning of mainstream institutions like local newspapers...and TV programs does, for the most part, serve to distract non-privileged groups from class issues, diffuse class tensions, and legitimate class inequalities." (The New Class Society, 1999).

In 2009, Carolyn Perrucci and I wrote: "How can we account for the low regard that Americans have for newspapers and TV news. We think that the big reasons for the negative opinions of newspapers is because of their failure to inform the American people about the big economic changes that were transforming the lives of most Americans (America at Risk, 2009).

The real scandal is that most of the long-standing media critics have failed to continue their critical analysis of media because they fear that they will be associated with Trump's criticisms.

Poll Data

The main thing to keep in mind when you hear the results of the latest public poll is the following: Did the pollster stick a microphone in the face of a citizen and asked the question: "What is your opinion on the performance of X in his/her current position." Or did the pollster ask the citizen "Please indicate your level of support for X by checking a box on this form and placing it in this box." The difference is that many people are reluctant to express their views in a public poll unless their opinions are protected and private. Always be suspicious of poll data unless you know how the questions were asked and the answers obtained.

Media power?

It is obvious to us that the mainstream media have become an important player in the game of national politics. Their consistent attacks on President Trump indicate that they play a key role in supporting or discrediting political players. Originally we thought that the media's new role as a powerful actor was in part a reflection of their ties to the Democrat party, because of lost elections.
We now are considering the possibility that the mainstream media may have a more ambitious agenda.

This new line of speculation was encouraged by an article in The Economist discussing how the Chinese and Russian governments view media beyond the confines of their borders. A Russian media leader commented on the similarity between Russia and China as victims of "information terrorism" by the Western media. The media specialist commented further that Russia and China must help each other because "we alone stand up to the mighty army of Western mainstream journalism."

This sounds like an updated version of George Orwell's 1984, where information control is not in the hands of a central government, but in the hands of independent media organizations. Maybe the new "warmongers" and "cold warriors" in the US are not the weapons profiteers, but the media barons.

Who would have ever thought that the morning newspaper and the TV news were the new forces seeking domination.  

Immigration Policy

As we head into the national debate about restricting US immigration policy, keep in mind who are the major supporters of a less restrictive/open policy. They are the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the US Catholic Church. Please keep in mind that the focus of the debate should be on US jobs and workers, not compassion.

Trump and Jobs

Although we are not among Trump's "deplorables," we had high hopes for his pro-worker promises to stop sending jobs offshore and to reduce corporate influence in Washington. Unfortunately, the July issue of Public Citizen reports that companies, like General Electric, that offshore jobs are still getting new federal contracts. We expected more from the new President and we need to keep up the pressure to make sure that firms that continue to offshore are not rewarded with government contracts.

Why the Dems really hate Trump?

Today I listened to one of Trump's "deplorables" on the radio. He was discussing the Trump family in very positive terms, pointing out how attractive and accomplished the women and men were in their personal and professional pursuits. While listening to him, it appeared to me that what he was saying about the Trump family could serve to replace the special standing of the Kennedy family in the thinking of most Americans.  Due mainly to the efforts of the media, the Kennedy's hold a special place in memories of many Americans. Will the Trump family and its attractive men and women finally drive a stake into the heart of Camelot and the medias love affair with the Kennedy family. Could this be one of the reasons for the continued effort to run down the Trump brand?

UPDATE:
On Sunday, 3/18/18 CNN had a one hour show on the Kennedys. I guess that the head of CNN felt it was time to remind everyone about our Royal Family. The show will be continued next Sunday. In the glorification of the Royal family, here are some of the things that I didn't learn.

1) Where did Joe Kennedy's money really come from? The Royal Family special made it sound like he was just a smart trader on the stock market. But I remember something about Joe Kennedy's involvement with illegal alcohol during prohibition.

2)  After Jack defeated Nixon in the Presidential election (the show did mention something about questionable votes by dead people in Chicago, but the reference was brief) Jack and his brother Bobby go on to make America Great Again (where have I heard that before).

3) I look forward to next week's show and hope that it will tell me that our involvement in Vietnam was started by President Jack Kennedy, NOT President Lyndon Johnson.

4) Do you think that the CNN special will tell us that Teddy was the first Harvey Weinstein. Maybe CNN should have done a special on Mary Jo Kopecne, (sp.?) the intern, and Teddy the man with the power.

It is difficult to tell the truth about a Royal Family, but maybe CNN will try.

College for the Underserved

In a 2014 article entitled The Good Society we wrote the following: "There should be an institutional basis for embedding achievement values in local primary and secondary schools. This could be achieved by establishing partnerships between public and private universities in each state and the primary and secondary schools that have weak performance records for their students. The purpose of these partnerships is to instill high achievement values in the student population as well as provide stronger curriculum and instructional resources to enable more students to be eligible for tuition awards for postsecondary education." The recent decisions by the President of Purdue University are two big steps in the right direction. The first was the creation of the Purdue Polytechnic High School in Indianapolis and the second was the acquisition of Kaplan University. While we question the process which took place without faculty input, those are the ways for universities to reach out to underrepresented and underserved students.

CISPES: Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador

In the mid-1970s, two Purdue University professors, one in political science and the other in sociology, worked together to establish an Indiana chapter of CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador). At the time, El Salvador was in the midst of an internal civil war between the government headed by Jose Napolean Duarte, and the opposition forces under the banner of the FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front). The government and military were accused of using "death squads" to intimidate many residents of rural areas from supporting rebel forces. The goal of the Indiana CISPES chapter was to inform community organizations throughout the state of events in El Salvador, and how the U.S. support for Duarte and the military was working against the interests of most Salvadorans. A second goal was to provide support for social and political groups from El Salvador that were traveling in the Midwest to meet with groups in the U.S. CISPES also undertook special projects like bringing a post-graduate student from El Salvador's national university to Purdue to study how field methods could be applied to reach the general pubic in hostile environments like the one existing in El Salvador.

On November 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter were killed at the campus of Universidad Centro-America in El Salvador. The killings made many think of the killing of Archbishop Oscar Romero who was assassinated while saying mass in March of 1980,when there was a major crackdown by the Death Squads against anyone with sympathies for the FMLN. The first thoughts of the CISPES group was that our former student at Universidad Centro-America was fortunate not to be involved in the attack, but for how long would she be safe? We began efforts to get the student out of El Salvador and into the United States. It was not easy, but we received specific instructions of how to do so. Robert and Carolyn set up a bank account in the student's name at a specific bank in Southern California with deposits in the amount of $15,000. In 2018 dollars, that would be $31,000. All went well, and our former Salvadoran student is now living a full life in the U.S.

Buy American to Create Jobs

In March 2014 we published an article in Sociological Forum that was titled "The Good Society: Core Social Values, Social Norms, and Public Policy." That article had a section called Buy American to Create Jobs. Here is what we wrote.

One of the desirable features of a good society is that it should have a strong and growing economy which provides employment opportunities for all of its citizens. In contemporary America such an economy does not now exist, and much of the turmoil and political conflict is about the best policies to achieve that end. Keeping in mind that our view of the good society is a bottom-up view, not a top-down view, we begin with the things that all citizens can do to create a vibrant economy before we discuss what government can do.

Thus, we begin with a set of prescriptive norms that are meant to guide behavior as consumers. When Americans call upon their government to create jobs, they must be prepared as consumers to take the lead and to exhibit behavior that is consistent with job creation. The first step is to buy autos, home appliances, and electronics from companies that produce in the United States with a high percentage of domestic content in their products. Of course, the imperative to buy American will probably lead to higher costs for consumers, because it will mean avoiding the "big box" stores that attract customers with lower-cost goods that have been produced in low-wage countries. But it is also possible that the development of  community industries would catch on and lead to revitalization of textile production in the United States and be a stimulus to the growth of co-ops and worker-owned businesses.

If you want to know more about these ideas you can read the article or our 2009 book America at Risk: The Crisis of Hope, Trust, and Caring.

Illegal Immigrants

In our 2009 book, America At Risk: The Crisis of Hope, Trust, and Caring, we presented our views on how to deal with the matter of illegal immigrants. Here is what we wrote.

A current issue facing Americans that has great potential for dividing them in warring camps is the question of what to do regarding the estimated the 10 to 12 million illegal immigrants currently in the United States. Most of those undocumented migrants are Mexican nationals, while some come from Central American nations. Most have come to the United States in search of a better life for themselves and their children, and Americans are divided about how welcoming we should be to people who have broken the law and what should be done. Let us exclude for the moment the views of groups that have their own agendas, like political groups that see immigrants as potential voters, union leaders who see them as workers who can be organized, and xenophobic or racist groups defending white supremacy. The remaining Americans who disagree on this issue tend to be divided into those claiming to be compassionate and generous versus those who are firm law abiders.

In order to move beyond the shouting and divided zealots on both sides, it will be necessary to identify a set of values that both sides embrace. For example, if both side in the immigration debate can agree on endorsing the values of family and hard work, then it may be possible to develop legislation that both sides can endorse. Let's call it the Working Family Pathway to Citizenship Law and apply it to the current population of undocumented immigrants. Under this plan, if an illegal is married, has a family, has been employed in the United States for at least five years, has been paying Social Security, has children in local schools, and gets a reference from an employer, than he/she will be on the fast track to U.S. citizenship. At the other end of the spectrum, unmarried immigrants who have been in the United States a short time and have erratic employment records will be eligible for deportation. The law would list eligibility for citizenship according to the family-work conditions of the immigrant, with some becoming citizens and some deported.

We think that a Pathway to Citizenship Law that affirms certain shared values has a chance of unifying Americans who, on the one hand, want to be welcoming because they acknowledge that we were all immigrants once, with Americans who place high value on being law abiding and fair. The goal is to find common ground on divisive issues that identify values that bring Americans together rather than those that divide. That is the only way in which a nation of people that has many identity groups can engender trust of each other.

Cold War Script

We recently wrote a post that argued that people are often guided by "scripts" when they make choices of how do deal with new situations. That post may be found on this blog. We now want to extend the idea of scripts beyond being a guide for individual action, to the idea that there are "social scripts." We propose that one such script may be called a "cold war script." It is obviously based in the political opposition to the new president and his positive views of Russia and its leader Putin. But the anti-Trump theme is often couched in recollections of the long-standing "Cold War" between the US and the USSR. Remember, the USSR no longer exists, but the "cold war script" goes back to the days following World War II and it is presented as if the US was still engaged in a struggle for the "hearts and minds " of many people around the world. (Aside: do you remember the "hearts and minds" script from the Vietnam era?). Anyway, where does the cold war script come from? Obviously, the media love it, because they have to write stories to fill up their pages every day. And they must glean their tidbits for daily stories from those who are politically connected elected officials and members of various foundations and "think tanks."

In the old days there were "cold warriors" who could always be counted upon to provide the media with tidbits for their daily stories. But today, there are as yet no "new cold warriors," at least any who have been identified as such. Again, in the old days, there were many organizations that enjoyed financial benefits from the "cold war," including defense contractors, universities, and think tanks. But who today benefits from the new cold war script? That is our question, and we leave it for you to consider.    

What is a fact?

Robert just finished listening to an early morning BBC show on NPR. It involved a number of journalists discussing the role of the media in overseeing the activities of elected officials. They were all very positive about their new assignment of being "fact checkers" and telling their listeners about who was speaking the "truth" and who wasn't. It reminded me of my first sociology course at Cortland State over 50 years ago. The instructor asked me "What is a fact?" I was baffled by the question and don't remember what I said.

Carolyn and I have written about the meaning of  the national measure of unemployment, about which the media reported during the past week. In our writings on the topic we have discussed the complexity of the generally accepted measure of unemployment, and the many layers of meaning that are hidden in the use of a single measure of the nation's economic health.

So, again we say: what is a fact?

On average, I'm getting screwed

This post is a quick reaction to some comments in the media on 1/22/17 regarding the inaugural address by President Trump. The theme of the comments was about how "dark" the address was regarding the United States, in that it emphasized things that were wrong in America. In contrast, several media figures provided positive statistics that reveal declining unemployment, rising wages, expanding exports, rising stock market, etc. In short, things look good in America so why did Trump emphasize the downside of everything. The answer is that ON AVERAGE everything does look good, but the people who voted for Trump are located at one end of the distribution on income, employment, and wages.