RA versus co-author

A reader poses a good question. I paraphrase:

I am close to closing a deal that will send me to Africa to manage a randomized impact evaluation and co-lead an NGO. Ultimately, my goal is to go back for a PhD. I am lobbying to get co-authorship on a paper or two from the evaluation. Given that this is my first experience negotiating co-authorship, I am not familiar with how it works.

I need to keep in mind that the economists are also people I would like to write recommendations for me. At this point there are no promises, only the commitment to consider co-authorship if I prove that I have sufficiently interesting research proposals.

I understand there’s a economic theorist at Harvard who does his best thinking standing in a corner with his forehead leaning into the wall. This is not a man who needs to worry a lot about giving credit to co-authors. Much of what is written in economics and politics is likewise individualistic (or, about as commonly, done in small teams of two or three).

The rise of large empirical projects, especially long term studies in developing countries, means many more projects involve large teams. The norms for authorship, however, remain dominated by the more individualistic style.

These new norms are still evolving, but my personal sense is that co-authorship by research assistants and managers can’t be taken for granted. What follows is my take having been a junior and a senior partner on several projects.

Co-authorship as an research assistant usually implies some combination of making a creative contribution and doing a lot of the work and analysis. In some cases, the latter work is unpaid. On a field study that takes several years, like an impact evaluation, it also means being along for the full ride.

For new staff, the people that hired you are going to wait and see if you are pleasant to work with, and are willing to stick around and work hard. At the point you begin to analyze the data, they may offer you a co-authorship. (This is especially likely if they are short of money to pay you for all that analysis time.) But I don't think most researchers would regard granting co-authorship an obligation unless they incorporate a substantial original contribution from you.

Keep some other factors in mind. On some projects there are already so many cooks in the kitchen that adding another can spoil the broth.

Some researchers want their paid staff mostly to be doers, and don't necessarily feel that they need another thinker. This is especially true when the researcher is an nontenured professor. Many want to be generous but their incentives point in the opposite direction. Tenured professors (and those with more field projects than they can handle) tend to be more willing to hand out assistants to those who can handle more responsibility. The professional evaluation staff at institutions like the World Bank are often generous with co-authorship for the same reasons.

At the outset of a project, I would simply try to establish that co-authorship is a possibility on current or follow-on publications, but not assured. If it’s important to you to get a publication, seek tenured or busy scholars, and be bright and dedicated. But in general I’d recommend you do the best you can irrespective of the co-authorship possibilities, and look for a potential shared project in the next phase.

In the end, I don't think being a co-author on will greatly influence your chances of getting into a program. The work will give you great experience, and prepare you to write a better dissertation, and eventually (if it is coauthored) look good on your graduating CV.

Like I said, however, the norms are still evolving. Does anyone have a different take? If so, please state your point of view (e.g. lead researcher, student, etc) as well.

Your books: throw them out or hoard them in?

Tyler Cowen, masquerading as a penguin, tells us to throw out our books:

Here's the problem. If you donate the otherwise-thrashed book somewhere, someone might read it. OK, maybe that person will read one more book in life but more likely that book will substitute for that person reading some other book instead.

So you have to ask yourself -- this book -- is it better on average than what an attracted reader might otherwise spend time with? No I'm not encouraging "censorship" of any particular point of view, but even within any particular point of view most books simply aren't that good. These books are traps for the unwary.

Of course, you could do what I do with books, good and bad: hoard them.

An unfortunate consequence of this behavior: I am moving this weekend, and confront 40 boxes of books. (Well, technically, the two guys I hired through Craigslist will have to confront the books. But I feel for them.)

I sometimes question my attachment to so much paper. I really ought to become a better user of public libraries. It's the compulsive scribbling of ideas in the margins, the underlining of important passages, and the chance that one day in the far flung future those scribblings will come in handy, that keep me hoarding. Early signs of insanity?

Should Zimbabwe follow Serbia?

Jonathan Steele, writing in The Guardian, proposes an unlikely model for Zimbabwe:

The best model for Zimbabwe happens to be European. October 2000 in Belgrade is the pattern that Zimbabwe, with luck, will follow. The scenario is uncannily similar. A ruthless strongman loses the first round but gets his election commission to say the opposition did not reach 50% and therefore a runoff is needed. The opposition refuses to take part for fear the ruling party will organise its cheating better the second time; and street protests are held.

Those of us who stood outside the Yugoslavian parliament and watched the police fade away before a bulldozer at the head of an angry crowd smashed into it were not entirely surprised. The police had not gone over to the people, however romantic that might have been. Some sympathised with the protesters, but the switch of loyalties mainly flowed from orders after behind-the-scenes negotiations that Vojislav Kostunica, the opposition candidate, led with Slobodan Milosevic's security chiefs. They were assured of safety if they changed sides. Milosevic met Kostunica next day and threw in the towel.

Comments from readers who know more about Serbia than I do? (That should be easy.)

Incidentally, Serbs chose a moderate, pro-EU premier yesterday.

So much for moderating my blogging on Zimbabwe.

Where's the safest seat on the plane?

As our thoughts turn to summer travel...

In a study commissioned by United Kingdom's Civil Aviation Authority, where 105 plane accidents and 2000 personal accounts were analyzed, emergency exit seats and the rows in front and behind them were found to be the safest. For the best chance of escaping from a burning aircrafts, the report said that passengers should choose aisle seats near the front of the aircraft and within five rows of the emergency exit.

What are the most dangerous seats? Anything six rows or more from the emergency exit. Here are the survival rates for escaping from a burning aircraft:

• Front of the aircraft, 65%
• Rear of the aircraft, 53%
• Aisle seat, 64%
• Non-aisle seat, 58%

Via Gadling

My misspent youth

I spent the first half of my college years addicted to world domination, electronic style. Civilization III was my unhealthy and all-consuming passion.

In my third year of study, I took the only sure way to quit--I gave up video games for life--and soon substituted development economics. (Now that I think of it, a pastime not so different from world domination.)

Michael Clemens alerts me to what my electronic megalomania may have cost me (and my college roommates).

From a randomized college roommate study:

"...being assigned a roommate with a video game is estimated to have the same effect on first semester grade point average as [roughly a one standard deviation] decrease in ACT scores..."

That's from Ralph and Todd Stinebrickner's The Causal Effect of Studying on Academic Performance

I would like to think there's a qualitative difference between games of strategy (read: crafty world domination), Super Mario, and shoot 'em up games. What's the marginal impact of the introduction of Grand Theft Auto into your dorm room?

Big brother meets Robocop

The city of Groningen has installed an aggression-detector at a busy intersection in an area full of pubs. Elevated microphones spaced 30 meters apart run along both sides of the street, joining an existing network of cameras. These connect to a computer at the police station in Groningen.

If the system hears certain sound patterns that correspond with aggression, it sends an alert to the police station, where the police can assess the situation by examining closed-circuit monitors: if necessary, officers are dispatched to the scene.

From "Hello, HAL: The battle to make computers understand" in the June 23 issue of the New Yorker.

Does professor quality matter?

In a new NBER working paper, evidence from random assignment of students to professors:

Introductory course professors significantly affect student achievement in contemporaneous and follow-on related courses, but the effects are quite heterogeneous across subjects.

While wondering whether to take that course with the visiting Harvard professor...

We find that the academic rank, teaching experience, and terminal degree status of mathematics and science professors are negatively correlated with contemporaneous student achievement, but positively related to follow-on course achievement.

And teachers, in case you ever wondered whether you should go easy on your students to boost your evaluation scores...

Across all subjects, student evaluations of professors are positive predictors of contemporaneous course achievement, but are poor predictors of follow-on course achievement.

Links I liked

1. The Economist writes a surprisingly thoughtful article on Hugo Chavez. Also, another in the New Yorker.

2. Peace talks in northern Uganda could be back on

3. Dutch say no to tobacco, yes to marijuana

4. Read this, because I said so

5. CBS has spent eight minutes covering Afghanistan this year (via FP)

6. The broadside on randomized evaluation

7. Visualizing textual cross references in the Bible

Nuanced African political analysis in the New York Times?!

We've all wondered the same:

Mr. Mbeki’s biographers, his colleagues, even his brother debate why he has stuck with his approach despite years of bad faith by Mr. Mugabe. Mr. Mbeki’s consistency is variously attributed to a hubristic resistance to admitting failure, a world view deeply suspicious of Western interference in African affairs, a hard-nosed calculation of political interests and a realistic assessment of the limits of South Africa’s power when confronted with an unrelenting autocrat.

The answer?

Mr. Mbeki's policy, typically called “quiet diplomacy,” is built on the staunch conviction that his special bond with Mr. Mugabe can resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe through patient negotiations, his colleagues and chroniclers says.

...South African officials contend that Mr. Mbeki’s mediation led to a relatively fair election in the first round of voting in March, with tallies posted at polling stations, a plurality of votes for Mr. Tsvangirai and a majority in Parliament for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

“His approach has produced results,” said Themba Maseko, the spokesman for the South African government.

Read the full article

While almost everyone may disagree, I think this is exactly the right approach. And almost no leader in the world has had more experience or success negotiating the end to armed (and unarmed) conflicts in the region.

(I'm also willing to bet that Mbeki is being quietly encouraged to maintain his stance by the other world leaders. It's called Good Cop, Bad Cop.)

This deal is time-limited, however--Mbeki is obliged to step down in 2009, and his likely replacement (Zuma) is not nearly so conciliatory.

Okay, I promise to stop writing about Zimbabwe now.

Tsvangirai asks us to invade (not)

Looks like yesterday's news was a mistake. The Guardian retracts the controversial op-ed attributed to Tsvangirai that advocated a U.N. invasion of Zimbabwe.

A piece that appeared in the Guardian newspaper and online, under the byline of Morgan Tsvangirai, president of the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe, has been removed from this site after contact from the MDC in Johannesburg and Harare yesterday made it clear that Tsvangirai had not in fact sanctioned it.

...In this instance, the article was provided to the Guardian by a reliable and reputable media consultant, an experienced journalist who has had more than 400 pieces published for his clients.

Read the full account

The logic of lying

On the Top Ten list of things I wish I'd thought of doing with my household survey data:

Their paper takes advantage of a remarkably rich data set from Oportunidades, a Mexican welfare program. It records the household goods that people say they have when they are applying for the program and then it also records the household goods that are actually found to be in that household once the recipient’s application has been accepted. Martinelli and Parker worked with data from more than 100,000 applicants, representing 10 percent of the applicants interviewed that year (2002).

It turned out that a lot of people underreported certain items that they thought might exclude them from getting benefits. Below is a list of underreported items followed by the percentage of recipients who owned a certain good but who said they didn’t:

Car (83.10 percent)
Truck (81.71)
Video recorder (79.73)
Satellite TV (73.91)
Gas boiler (73.12)
Phone (73.12)
Washing machine (53.46)

That’s not very surprising: you might expect people to lie to gain the advantage of a welfare benefit. But here’s the surprise. Below is a list of household items that were overreported — i.e., which applicants said they had but in fact did not (again, followed by percentages):

Toilet (39.07 percent)
Tap water (31.76)
Gas stove (28.56)
Concrete floor (25.41)
Refrigerator (12.05)

So 4 out of 10 applicants without a toilet said they had one. Why?

Martinelli and Parker chalk it up to embarrassment, plain and simple.

Read the rest on the Freakonomics blog.

The paper is “Deception and Misreporting in a Social Program,” by Cesar Martinelli and Susan Parker.

Tsvangirai asks us to invade

Writing in The Guardian, Morgan Tsvangirai asks the U.N. to send peacekeepers into Zimbabwe:

We envision a more energetic and, indeed, activist strategy. Our proposal is one that aims to remove the often debilitating barriers of state sovereignty, which rests on a centuries-old foundation of the sanctity of governments, even those which have proven themselves illegitimate and decrepit. We ask for the UN to go further than its recent resolution, condemning the violence in Zimbabwe, to encompass an active isolation of the dictator Mugabe.

For this we need a force to protect the people. We do not want armed conflict, but the people of Zimbabwe need the words of indignation from global leaders to be backed by the moral rectitude of military force. Such a force would be in the role of peacekeepers, not trouble-makers. They would separate the people from their oppressors and cast the protective shield around the democratic process for which Zimbabwe yearns.

Full article here.

Tsvangirai is not specific, but he seems to be suggesting a Chapter VII peacekeeping mission--the only one that allows force, and one that can enter without the consent of belligerents.

Is this bluster, desperation, or dangerous naivete?

For peacekeepers to enter without the consent of a sitting Government and attempt to force a new election strikes me as an unprecedented move. There is disorder, but not war. There are great crimes being committed, but they are not war crimes.

Moreover, any intervention would almost certainly be met by force, and the country held under occupation for a time.

Tsvangirai did all but say that liberated Zimbabweans would throw flowers to the conquering troops. We have heard this before from darker quarters.

In our adulation for the heroes of the opposition -- whether it is Odinga in Kenya, Besigye in Uganda, or Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe -- we seldom wonder or worry whether our protagonist is as much a fool or a thug as the sitting President we despise. I still recall the Western press's short-lived love affair with Laurent Kabila, who overthrew the titan Mobutu in Zaire (now Congo). Tsvangirai's rash and provocative op-ed is cause for concern.

Update: The Guardian retracts! All a gross misunderstanding?

Trust me, you'll like it

A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt an idea. They were standing around taking pictures in Hanoi, and his friend said "Hey, why don't you stand over there and do that dance. I'll record it." He was referring to a particular dance Matt does. It's actually the only dance Matt does. He does it badly. Anyway, this turned out to be a very good idea.

Matt kept going. I don't know why exactly, but the result is ridiculously charming.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding

The best part: all the people dancing are ones who saw an earlier 2005 YouTube video, and came together again to do the dance.

The full, absurd, happy story is here. (HT: Jeff Shek)

Greasing the wheels of capitalism with the best and brightest

In the New York Times, Harvard's president laments the lure of Wall Street to its undergraduates. Several students seem to share her perspective:

“I don’t think a lot of people at Harvard know what a hedge fund or a consulting firm is when they start,” he said. But then, he explained, juniors and seniors being recruited come back from expensive dinners out and “start throwing salaries around,” and students begin to understand that “there’s already a kind of prestige attached to working for those people.”

Even the economics PhDs are trashing the system.

As Adam M. Guren, a new Harvard graduate who will be pursuing his doctorate in economics, put it, “A lot of students have been asking the question: ‘We came to Harvard as freshmen to change the world, and we’re leaving to become investment bankers — why is this?’”

The Economist's libertarian leaning Free Exchange blog finds the lamentation lamentable.

Students pursuing these high paid jobs get classified as sell-outs. It also seems students at elite schools are told they posses extra-ordinary talents and thus have a moral obligation to enter public service. It explains why us poor saps at state schools were merely told if we got a well paid job we found interesting we should feel grateful, rather than morally conflicted.

This seems unnecessarily cynical. I went to a state school in Canada and was given the "leaders of the future" line. I bought it, and believe it.

There's a good argument that the expectation of lifetime utility is higher in public service. Who ever said, "As happy as an investment banker"? It's right up there with, "As beautiful as an airport". But of course, I'm an empiricist. With all the happiness economics going on, it would be interesting to see if there's data on the question.

Personally, I also wonder whether the diversion to investment banking is a national economic drain. Is greasing the great financial wheel of the U.S. really the ideal pursuit for the nation's brightest? What's the marginal gain to market efficiency of the umpteenth undergrad (from Harvard or not) trading commodity shares? Pretty low, I bet--and undoubtedly well below the social opportunity cost.

Thoughts from readers?

The end of an era

Colbert reveals that the Cookie Monster has now turned away from cookies to... fruit.

Possibly the best Cookie Monster line to date:

Me have crazy times in 70s and 80s. Me like the Robert Downey Jr. of cookies.

Zimbabwe: What the continent has to say

BBC News summarizes what African newspapers have to say about Zimbabwe's future. From an editorial in South Africa's Cape Times:

Now [South African President Thabo] Mbeki - backed by the region, Africa and the rest of the world - has to make clear to Mugabe that if he goes ahead and declares himself the winner and therefore the president, Sadc [Southern African Development Community], the African Union and the United Nations will simply not recognise him or his government.

See more here.

Dispatches from Moscow

From Rebecca Martin in McSweeney's:

Fifty meters underground, in the shadows of Marxistskaya metro station, the police are picking out everyone with dark skin. In front of me, a tiny woman in slacks and a crisp jean jacket is yanked out. Her eyes roll up in confusion at a militsioner in a platter-sized cap.

We pale-skinned folk whisk onto the escalator, up to the light.

What has this little woman done? Perhaps she is one of the estimated 3 million unregistered workers flooding the city to eke out a living from the oil trickle-down. Perhaps her internal passport—one must carry it at all times—is not stamped "Moscow resident" and she can't afford the bribe.

Full dispatch here. A previous one here.

A disaster of Olympic proportions?

How will the Olympics come off this summer? The Atlantic's James Fallows, who lives in China, wonders aloud about a series of inadvertent government decisions that bode ill for August's Games.

The real puzzle is the string of deliberate decisions:

- A radical crackdown on visa-issuance, at just the time the country is supposedly inviting the world to visit Beijing. This is so widespread and serious that it’s the talk of business people and even hoteliers.

- A crackdown on foreign and international journalists, at just the time the authorities know that the world’s attention will turn to Beijing. The tone of world coverage has been understandably and properly sympathetic in the wake of the Sichuan earthquake. But it is easy to imagine how this could change.

You don’t have to know a lot about the foreign press to know how the increasing controls are going to backfire. Particularly nutty touch: leaving international broadcasters in the dark about whether they will be able to broadcast live from Beijing, rather than being subject to censors' delay. After a “Sichuan spring” of relatively free press and blog discussion after the earthquake, domestic press controls are closing in again too.

- A noticeable increase in security presence around Beijing. To an extent, this is a chronic Beijing issue. It’s the big imperial capital, and you feel the Hand of the State in daily life here vastly more than in other parts of the country. It’s like the contrast between Washington DC and Berkeley. But it feels different even in the last two months. Bag-screening at some subway stations now. I understand that by Olympic time visitors will go through security screening after they get off airplanes too. Perhaps that’s a rumor; perhaps it’s necessary for the Olympics. But it’s not subtle.

Read the full post.

What we don't see in the coverage on Zimbabwe

The sad news of Tsvangirai's departure from the Zimbabwe poll is all over the newspapers and blogosphere this morning. Zimbabwe indeed loses today.

Some careful thought needs to go into the next move. I am no Zimbabwe expert. But my experience with other cases suggest a few thoughts and opinions that I seldom see in all the press coverage:

• Zimbabwe is not ruled by Mugabe alone--a single man who can be pressured to step down or be bought off. It is run by a cabal. A cabal of businessmen, politicians, and military men. Their days are numbered if Mugabe goes, and they will do anything necessary to keep him in power. If the international community wants a peaceful transition from power, it needs to consider how to buy off or protect the thugs surrounding Mugabe, as well as Mugabe himself. Otherwise, prepare for a fight.

• Strongmen like Mugabe, in Africa or not, almost never leave power democratically. In fact, I can't think of any examples offhand. Transitions to new leaders and new parties usually occur only after the strong man elects to stand down (or dies). Think Moi in Kenya. Tsvangirai undoubtedly knows his African history, and might think that the best he can do is wait for Mugabe to step aside--an act that may be speeded by recent events. Or so we hope.
  

• Peaceful democratic transitions almost never happen quickly, let alone in a single election cycle.

• There's a school of thought with a simple proposition: strong democracies are created within. Think the Velvet and Orange Revolutions, for the most glorious examples. By this account, the most the international community can do is to support these popular movements (and their leaders, like Tsvangirai). How to do so effectively, I don't know. Nor, it seems, does anyone else. Iraq has illustrated that external armed regime change is no simple thing. It's also naive, I believe, to think that righteous indignation from the press and foreign offices is appropriate, effective, or enough. Yet it seems to be all we're doing, and all we're after. Some careful and long term thinking, by people who know the region well, is urgently required.

• We have short memories. Mugabe's rise to power, his land seizures, and his domestic popularity are due in no small part to the West's (especially Britain's) unwillingness to end colonialism; unwillingness to end white supremacy after the supremacists ended colonialism; and unwillingness to effectively fund land redistribution after revolutionaries valiantly ended white supremacy. That was less than thirty years ago. Little surprise our moral outrage counts for little in the region.
  

These views are not necessarily the correct ones. Their absence from the debate, however, is conspicuous.

A dude, in a cheesy Western, with a tiny posse

A text on the internet rarely takes for granted your decision to read it or to continue reading it. There is often, instead, a jazzy, hectoring tone. At home my boyfriend and I use a certain physical gesture as shorthand to describe it. To make it, extend your index fingers and your thumbs so that your hands resemble toy pistols. Then waggle them before you, like a dude in a cheesy Western, while you wink, dip your knees, and lopsidedly drawl, "Heyyy." The internet is always saying, "Heyyy." It is always welcoming you to the party; it is always patting you on the back to congratulate you for showing up.

From Caleb Crain's excellent essay on Internet writing (via MR). Another gem:

I would say that writing on the internet tends to be more popular when it satisfies the reader's wish to be connected—the wish not to miss out. The writer, too, may have such a wish. I admit that I love it when another blog links to mine; there is great consolation in the feeling of having a posse.

Look at me! I'm all noblesse oblige!

Princeton bio-ethicist Peter Singer says we need to get over our reluctance to speak openly about the good we do.

Jesus said that we should give alms in private rather than when others are watching. That fits with the commonsense idea that if people only do good in public, they may be motivated by a desire to gain a reputation for generosity. Perhaps when no one is looking, they are not generous at all.

That thought may lead us to disdain the kind of philanthropic graffiti that leads to donors’ names being prominently displayed on concert halls, art museums, and college buildings. Often, names are stuck not only over the entire building, but also on as many constituent parts of it as fundraisers and architects can manage.

According to evolutionary psychologists, such displays of blatant benevolence are the human equivalent of the male peacock’s tail. Just as the peacock signals his strength and fitness by displaying his enormous tail – a sheer waste of resources from a practical point of view – so costly public acts of benevolence signal to potential mates that one possesses enough resources to give so much away.

From an ethical perspective, however, should we care so much about the purity of the motive with which the gift was made? Surely, what matters is that something was given to a good cause. We may well look askance at a lavish new concert hall, but not because the donor’s name is chiseled into the marble façade. Rather, we should question whether, in a world in which 25,000 impoverished children die unnecessarily every day, another concert hall is what the world needs.

I wasn't aware we were so modest. One of my keenest memories of northern Uganda (and other humanitarian emergencies) is the brought-to-you sign.

"Brought to you by the European Union" remarks a run down set of latrines that the filthiest Frenchman wouldn't dare to utilizer.

"Brought to you by the American people" proclaim the kazillion tin cans of cooking oil. Long after the American fat has been consumed, the cans are beaten flat into the doors that adorn the horrible EU latrines (a delicious irony).

There's something harmless, but so tasteless and realpolitik, about these proclamations. They make perfect sense, but I keep picturing the distinguished Congressman from Kansas, who's idea of winning hearts and minds to America consists of a bill requiring USAid to incessantly remind its unfortunate beneficiaries where their calories come from.

Singer's in the midst of writing a book on philanthropy and the obligations of the rich to assist the poor. I await it keenly.

Who knew he had so much soul?

Why Dani Rodrik's daughter should impersonate her father's blog all of the time:

And now I'm jamming out to the music on my iPhone in celebration while my daughter is coping with her crap iPod from 1923. You should see me play the air guitar.. mm hmm magic flows from my fingers. And I'm sure you can't wait to see me dance because that is, of course, the main attraction. When I start my daughters are so overjoyed that they have to step outside for a little. They tell me that it's because they don't want to be seen with me, but I know it's really to suppress their misery that this gene was not passed on to them.

Who better to know that 'densely-packed, economically-filled brain'?

Short fiction podcasts

A longtime iPod owner, I'd yet to download and listen to a single podcast. The excruciating plane ride to and from Australia changed all that.

I'm now addicted to at least two programs (other than Car Talk): the New Yorker fiction podcast and NPR's selected shorts podcast. Authors select and read their favorite short stories, and discuss what it is they love most about them. Highly recommended.

Should Mugabe be denounced?

Why haven't Nelson Mandela or Thabo Mbeki denounced Zimbabwe's Mugabe? Many foreign policy types are critical (see Hitchens or FP, for instance).

Well, perhaps it's because we still need someone who can credibly do this.

The Western foreign policy and human rights types love a righteous denunciation. I've yet to see any signs it works.

Should Mandela and Mbeki empty all their ammunition in a flash to please the chattering classes? I say not yet. Let's leave a little room for real politics--the backroom sort--to play itself out.

Coffee makes you live longer

From the New Scientist:

A strong cup of coffee in the morning can feel like a life saver. Now, one of the largest and longest studies of coffee drinking suggests that coffee may indeed boost your lifespan – providing you drink enough of the stuff, that is.

The study tracked 129,000 men and women over two decades. It found that people who consumed several cups of coffee every day were less likely to die of heart disease than those who shied away from the stuff. Heart disease is an umbrella term for conditions including heart attacks, stroke, and arrhythmia.

The researchers found that women who drank four to five cups per day were 34% less likely to die of heart disease, while men who had more than five cups a day were 44% less likely to die.

I have only two words: Woo hoo!!!

Links I liked

1. How does the Freakonomics-reading public suggest we ensure cooperation? Asking the name and address of the other guy's most cherished family member.

2. Slightly more optimistic cross-country evidence on culture and cooperation.

3. Are you in an Asian, African, or Latin American think tank? IDRC announces grant funding for research institutions in the developing world.

4. Obama on the meaning of life (via MoLT).

5. The most beautiful goat in the world

6. The future of online gaming: World of World of Warcraft

7. The Post interviews Ugandan boxer (and former child soldier) Kassim the Dream, in advance of his documentary debut. A good article, but with the unfortunate and seemingly unavoidable reference to 'Heart of Darkness that is requisite of all U.S journalism about Africa.

8. A slightly better interview with Kassim from the Guardian

9. Related to 7 and 8: an excerpt from How to Write About Africa by Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina

Always use the word ‘Africa or ‘Darkness’ or ‘Safari’ in your title. Subtitles may include the words ‘Zanzibar’, ‘Masai’, ‘Zulu’, ‘Zambezi’, ‘Congo’, ‘Nile’, ‘Big’, ‘Sky, ‘Shadow’, ‘Drum’, ‘Sun’ or ‘Bygone’. Also useful are words such as ‘Guerrillas’, ‘Timeless’, ‘Primordial’ and ‘Tribal’. Note that ‘People’ means Africans who are not black, while ‘The People’ means black Africans.

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don’t get bogged down with precise descriptions.

Read the full essay in The Granta. My favorite line of all: "Never, ever say anything negative about an elephant or a gorilla."

Seems like I'm just to the right of the Dalai Lama

You too can check your political compass with a simple online questionnaire.

Here's where "a diverse professional team" has placed global political leaders along these economic and social policy axes:

Strange that the bottom right should be so empty. That's precisely where I'd place the bulk of economists.

Meanwhile, here's my score:

I'm definitely pleased to share the same quadrant as Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama (and the opposite one to Bush and Berlusconi).

I wonder, though, how the world leaders responded to illuminating and scientific questions like "astrology accurately explains many things: agree or disagree?"

Or, my favorite: "Agree or disagree: abstract art that doesn't represent anything shouldn't be considered art at all?"

Apparently George Bush doesn't like abstract art.

Via Emirates Economist.

Guantanamo moves to The Hague?

More bungling by the International Criminal Court, reports the New York Times. In 2005 the ICC indicted and captured Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga on the charge of forcibly recruiting child soldiers. Lubanga has been held without trial for nearly three years, and was due to see his first day in court June 23.

On Friday, after a tense hearing, the judges ordered all proceedings stopped. In their ruling, which was released on Monday, the judges said that the prosecution had withheld “significant” exculpatory evidence from the defense. As a result, they wrote, “the trial process has been ruptured to such a degree that it is now impossible to piece together the constituent elements of a fair trial.”

This is a funny case whatever way you look at it. The Court's mission is to try the “most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole.” Lubanga, however, is a small-timer as Congolese warlords go. Yes, I'd like to see the brutal kidnappers of children brought to justice. But is Lubanga among the most serious perpetrators of the most serious crimes in the world?

Obviously not. So why go after li'l ol' Lubanga? Well, the ICC has yet to try or convict anyone. It may be that they want an easy case to get the party started. Well, if so, and they've managed to get the case kicked out, bravo bozos.

Another story is that Lubanga is to set an example for for the bigger warlords in the region: disarm peaceably, or you're going to be brought to justice just like your pal here. Indeed, one of the underlying logics of the ICC is that the prosecution of war criminals will help deter future warlordism and increase our leverage over current ones.

Again, nicely done, ICC.

I wish it got better. But from where I stand, the ICC's approach to their other major case--northern Uganda--is similarly bumbling and naive. The ICC released indictments for the leadership of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army in 2006, working closely with the Government of Uganda. But by pointedly refusing to investigate the Government's own great crimes against the citizenry in northern Uganda, the ICC immediately became a partisan in the long-running conflict.

Now, the LRA indictments had an unexpectedly good effect: encouraging the rebel leadership to come to the negotiating table rather than running away for good. There are two possible interpretations of these events: one, the ICC has superb information and political acumen, and knew exactly what they were doing; two, they got plain lucky.

Given that the prosecutor's office displayed (and continues to display) almost complete ignorance of the war and the facts on the ground, and given that the prosecutor was genuinely amazed that nearly all of Ugandan civil society opposed his secretive indictments, I lean towards 'blind lucky'. But I could be persuaded otherwise.

Try getting an ICC supporter to see this side. I've tried. The members and supporters of the ICC I've encountered display an ideological fervor for ICC the institution that I wish was matched by a fervor for an actual international system of justice--presumption of innocence, fair trails, and so forth. If a Congolese war criminal or a Ugandan peace process must be crushed by the wheels of international justice to establish an ICC, so be it, I have heard it said. Nothing in my mind could more quickly undermine the ICC's credibility and effectiveness.

I'd like to see an international system of justice with powers reaching beyond what the ICC presently has. But not if it's run with the same apparent arrogance and ignorance. The closest parallel to the ICC I see is Bush and the neocons and the remaking of the Middle East. The second closest parallel is Boss Hog and Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane. That should give us all pause.

Readers: If I'm too critical, I would happily be proven wrong in the comments section.

For a more optimistic and better informed view of the ICC, my friend Tim Allen has a short book. For a view even more critical than mine, see this provocative paper from Adam Branch.

What to read on a 28 hour plane ride

I have a weakness for ridiculously bad airplane films, and this particular trip (DC to Sydney) was no disappointment. To balance out the trash, I pre-commit myself to interesting reading.

First, the New Yorker's latest fiction issue is the best I've read all year. Unfortunately the two best pieces are not online. Haruki Murakami writes a mini-memoir recounting his accidental birth as a noveist (and runner). And Mary Gaitskill tells the tale of two hapless women who try to adopt an Ethiopian child outside the law. Either is worth the price of the issue.

Fortunately, from the same issue, six excellent meditations on faith and doubt, plus James Wood's review of Bart Ehrman's books on the same topic, are all online.

Less impressive was this month's Atlantic, although the post-feminist article by Sandra Tsing Loh was worth reading.

The Journal of Economic Perspectives offers a symposium on economic development. The articles are gated, but you should be able to Google ungated versions of the articles that interest you most. Also check out the treatise on identity theft.

Last and best: for years, if you were to ask me my favorite novel, I'd likely reply Waiting for the Barbarians, by South African writer J.M. Coetzee. I decided to reread it and see if I agree with my past self. I do. The story of a kindly, nameless magistrate on the fringes of a insidious, nameless Empire, it's the kind of novel that haunts you long after you put it down.

What does the U.S. have in common with the Sudan, Yemen, and Russia?

Speaking at the beginning of a major UN summit on HIV/AIDS, Secretary General Ban Ki Moon challenged national immigration laws that place travel and visa restrictions on people with HIV. He did not mince his words:

I call for a change in laws that uphold stigma and discrimination, including restrictions on travel for people living with HIV... [60 years after the Universal Declaration on Human Rights] it is shocking that there should still be discrimination against those at high risk, such as men who have sex with men, or stigma attached to individuals living with HIV.

Twelve countries -- Armenia, Colombia, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Sudan, the United States and Yemen -- bar entry to people with HIV.

From UN dispatch, who also points us to this Washington Post op-ed from Atlantic blogger Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan recalls the year of the HIV ban clearly:

I remember that year particularly because it was when I, a legal immigrant, became infected. With great lawyers, a rare O visa (granted to individuals in the arts and sciences), a government-granted HIV waiver and thousands of dollars in legal fees, I have managed to stay in the United States.

Nonetheless, because I am HIV-positive, I am not eligible to become a permanent resident. Each year I have to leave the country and reapply for an HIV waiver to reenter.

I have lived in the United States for almost a quarter-century, have paid taxes, gotten married and built a life here -- but because of HIV, I am always vulnerable to being forced to leave for good. After a while, the stress of such insecurity gnaws away at your family and health.