Author Archive

Ventilation mine in desired are which air movements regular, slow with the intefere seriously would which currents strong produce tunnels and subways in trains of movements the but different with dealt be to impurities the are only not.

That’s from The Air and Ventilation of Subways. What does it mean that I was bored by page 5, then skipped to page 97, read every odd-numbered page after that and then realized that the best way to appreciate what this book has to offer was to read it backwards starting from chapter 10?

Here is Bryan Caplan on getting dates.

Jane Austen updated: It is a truth universally acknowledged that it is easier for an older man to marry a second wife that for an older woman to meet a second husband.  Women on the prowl can join this symposium to get some tips.

Amos Poitvein, a loyal MR reader, asks the following question.

I am a longtime reader of MR and there is a question I have been wondering about for a long time.  I was hoping you could share your thoughts on meatball heterogeneity.  My girlfriend made dinner for me and the entree was Swedish meatballs.  I never knew how small their meatballs are.  It seems inefficient to roll all that meat into such tiny balls.  Wouldn’t it make more sense to roll them into big balls like we do in the US?

A few points:

1. Its tempting to cite elasticity of labor supply here.  Swedish meatballs are served in the home and Sweden’s high marginal tax rates on labor income encourages household production.  However, American meatballs grew out of Italian-American restaurants in immigrant neighborhoods where labor was relatively cheap.  Also, Americans have fatter hands.
2. The Hansonian take is that meatballs are an important cultural symbol and the size of the American meatball is a signal.  To understand Swedish meatballs,  think ABBA with pork.
3. It helps to compare with the massive Bulgarian meatball which dwarfs them both.
4. Perhaps the real puzzle is not why the meatballs are so different in size but the striking geometrical regularity of spherical meat throughout the world’s cuisines.
5. Need I mention baseball versus bandy?
6. Then again bandy is played on ice and we all know what that does to balls.
7. Also Americans believe in the rule of law.
8. Ligonberries are over-rated but I could spend a whole day just riding the subway in Stockholm.

10. Don’t get me started on New Jersey.
11. I wonder if anybody noticed that I skipped over #9.
12. I’ve been at this for six years and nobody has yet figured out that this blog is a cry for help.
13. Mankiw was in the Bush Administration, Krugman is flying all over the planet and I am still teaching “Law and Literature” to undergraduates and enjoying scinillating lunchtime conversation with the likes of Arnold Kling.
14. Will someone please tell me what Paul is saying at the end of “Rocky Raccoon?”
15. Is this on?
16. Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine …
17. What, oh, yes, um… Everyone knows the Swedish are plagued by nearsightedness and their national health service barely covers basic optometry.  Objects on the plate appear larger than they actually are…

The bottom line: I think the most likely explanation is some combination of #5 and #14.

What topics would you like me to write about?  I have a few minutes of spare time today, I promise I will answer your first 50 requests.

A mere Youngling yes, she has just completed the 7th grade, but she will not be under-appreciated for long.  She has just won the “Picture is Worth a Thousand Words” contest at the Illinois Council of Economics Education.  Her work may well be the most significant advance on the subject of specialization since von Mises.  There is too much here that trying to excerpt from it would not do it justice so you should read the whole thing.

1. The Kindly Ones. Jonathan Littel is an American who adopted the French language to write this massive novel on the experience of a rising star in the SS during the Second World War.  I found that the detailed descriptions of torture and sodomy don’t work well in the English translation.  On the other hand Littel’s French seems forced so I opted for the Japanese translation which kept my attention through page 467.
2. The World According to Mr. Rogers:  Important Things to Remember. Ostensibly a memoir of a man who raised a generation’s children via television, but you can read this book as an intellectual history of the golden age of falsetto puppetry.
3. Working with Power Tools (New Best of Fine Woodworking.) Among a handful of the best technical manuals specifically covering portable power tools I have read all year.   There is something good on every page and this is now my standard reference on the rotary lathe.
4. The Alex Studies: Communicative and Cognitive Abilities of Grey Parrots.  Irene Pepperberg’s seminal masterwork.  Perhaps the vegetarian’s most compelling case against persuadable carnivores – requires extrapolation from parrots to other species.
5. Michael Jackson’s Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch. Indispensable for the moon-walking sophisticate.  Intriguing chapter on how wearing a glove challenges the tastebuds.
6. Return to the Hundred Acre Woods.  The wisdom of Christopher Robin and Owl for a new generation.  Even Yana was transported to a kinder world.