Who you gonna believe? Walmart or Whole Foods?

“They do a lot of good things they don’t talk about” .... “It’s getting harder and harder to hate Walmart.”

Those are quotes in a wonderfully honest and objective report from my favorite food commentator, Corby Kummer.
Kummer takes a look at Walmart Supercenters selling organic and locally grown produce, and is impressed:

I had trouble believing I was in a Walmart. The very reasonable-looking produce, most of it loose and nicely organized, was in black plastic bins (as in British supermarkets, where the look is common; the idea is to make the colors pop). The first thing I saw, McIntosh apples, came from the same local orchard whose apples I’d just seen in the same bags at Whole Foods. The bunched beets were from Muranaka Farm, whose beets I often buy at other markets—but these looked much fresher.

And then he devises the following experiment:

Walmart holding its own against Whole Foods? This called for a blind tasting.
I conspired with my contrarian friend James McWilliams, an agricultural historian at Texas State University at San Marcos and the author of the new Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly. He enlisted his friends at Fino, a restaurant in Austin that pays special attention to where the food it serves comes from, as co-conspirators. I would buy two complete sets of ingredients, one at Walmart and the other at Whole Foods. The chef would prepare them as simply as possible, and serve two versions of each course, side by side on the same plate, to a group of local food experts invited to judge.

Read his essay on what that experiment revealed. 

Unemployment burns, and the DC Neros play the fiddle

The wrenching unemployment story does not seem to get any better at all.  It is a farcical tragedy that against this background, irresponsible politicians are playing the fiddle in ways that make Nero to be a heroic savior.

A couple of days ago I was reading this awfully depressing piece in the Atlantic, where Don Peck concludes:

We are in a very deep hole, and we’ve been in it for a relatively long time already. Concerns over deficits are understandable, but in these times, our bias should be toward doing too much rather than doing too little. That implies some small risk to the government’s ability to continue borrowing in the future; and it implies somewhat higher taxes in the future too. But that seems a trade worth making. We are living through a slow-motion social catastrophe, one that could stain our culture and weaken our nation for many, many years to come. We have a civic—and indeed a moral—responsibility to do everything in our power to stop it now, before it gets even worse.

I was done with reading that when a colleague emailed me a link to this animated graphic on monthly unemployment by county.

After that I had to go to teach and pretend to the students that when they graduate later this spring everything will be fantastic.  I seriously need to get back to my old bottom-line to students: "you are screwed" :(

And then I turn to the Economist today, where I read this as a coda:

What seems clear is that at no time in the living memory of working Americans has the economy gone through a recession like this—deep, and with a jobless recovery. It will influence society and culture for a generation. It may also produce a serious bout of reflection in America, concerning just how the economy lost its way over the past decade (and perhaps longer).

Being a teetotaler--yes, that is me--is of no help in these situations!

The tragedy at Rocket City, USA

What an awful news :(

Officials said the dead were all biology professors: G. K. Podila, the department’s chairman; Maria Ragland Davis; and Adriel D. Johnson Sr. Two other biology professors, Luis Rogelio Cruz-Vera and Joseph G. Leahy, as well as a professor’s assistant, Stephanie Monticciolo, were at Huntsville Hospital. Mr. Cruz-Vera was in fair condition; the others were in critical condition.

Even Dutch cartoonists joke about the Dollar :(

Quote of the day! "California Dreaming"

People worry that Greece is bankrupt — hah!

That was a reader's comment on the state of California, which Gail Collins quotes in her column on readers bragging that their states have the worst political culture.  I tell you, we compete in everything :)

"Mashed potato circuit"

Yes, that is how my work was described earlier today.
Funny.

I have paid my dues :)

The Chevy Suburban turns 75. I did not know that!

Thanks to this piece at Slate, I got to read an interesting essay at Wired, on the 75th birthday of ... the Chevy Suburban.  I tell you, everyday is a revelation that I don't know *&^%--I had no idea that this was that old, and I would have guessed that it pretty much debuted in the SUV years of the 1990s.

Wired educates me that:

First debuting in 1935 amid the Great Depression and Dust Bowl exodus, the vehicle then known as the Suburban Carryall holds the distinction of being the longest-continuously-produced vehicle model in the United States. As much as we think SUVs are for the most part a blight upon the landscape, we’ve got to tip our collective hat to the Suburban for its longevity.

 Check out the photographs of the various avatars of the Suburban.

Driving a car: are you really in control?

You call it a yoga mat ... to some it is a mattress!

From Fallows:

... asked studio owners, teachers, students alike to give up their old or used mats so that the thousands of suffering people in Haiti may have somewhere softer the  ground to sleep.
... May we all contribute in one way or another to help ease the tremendous suffering that continues in Haiti.

Who wants to bomb Iran? Not me ... but, the list is growing :(

As I noted in an earlier post, we are counting down to the anniversary of Iran's 1979 theocratic revolution.  Apparently the government is already engaged in preemptive arrests of opposition activists.  Meanwhile, war cries at the Tea Party Convention (isn't a neat coincidence that the movie Alice in Wonderland is coming soon?)
Oh well .... One of the many flippant remarks that candidate John McCain made was the "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran"

Foreign Policy lists the people leading this war chant.  Just stay away from them :)

Don't read your PowerPoint slides :)

Faculty + technology + classroom = ? in teaching .... wonderfully done.
Click here for the backstory

The problem with Rajendra Pachauri is ....

not his IPCC stuff as much as his comb-over is :)

Oh, a close second is apparently his novel that is rather preoccupied with breasts. An excerpt from a piece in the Telegraph:

"She removed her gown, slipped off her nightie and slid under the quilt on his bed... Sanjay put his arms around her and kissed her, first with quick caresses and then the kisses becoming longer and more passionate.
"May slipped his clothes off one by one, removing her lips from his for no more than a second or two.
"Afterwards she held him close. ‘Sandy, I’ve learned something for the first time today. You are absolutely superb after meditation. Why don’t we make love every time immediately after you have meditated?’."
More follows, including Sanjay and friends queuing to have sexual encounters with Sajni, an impoverished but willing local: "Sanjay saw a shapely dark-skinned girl lying on Vinay’s bed. He was overcome by a lust that he had never known before ... He removed his clothes and began to feel Sajni’s body, caressing her voluptuous breasts."
Sadly for Sanjay, writes Dr Pachauri, "the excitement got the better of him, before he could even get started".

Is Sri Lanka slipping back into anarchy?

What is with Sri Lanka?

26 years of civil war. 
Brought to an end through a brutal military assault.
Then civilians held in camps.
Presidential elections in which the former military guy, General Fonseka, is the "opposition" candidate.
He loses. 
Then this former military guy is arrested.
Now, the parliament is dissolved, for earlier than scheduled elections.

So, what next, Serendip?

Drooling, thinking about jackfruit ....

"Chakka", as it is referred to in Kerala, morphed into "Jack" .... but, who cares what it is called ... it is one tasty fruit.

Back in India, my mother cooks the young, unripe jack fruit--before it develops into its huge size--in a couple of different ways.  One of my favorite dishes.  Am drooling when I think of it.  I think it is one of those dishes that is fast disappearing from the urban kitchens.  Unfortunately.

And the ripe fruit .... aaaahhhhh!!!! Last summer when I was in India, mom, dad, my sister, and I sat on the floor and worked on a ripe jack fruit--cutting it up, and plucking that fleshy fruit without messing it up much.

Then to remove the seed from each and every one of those.  Mom cooked those seeds, which is a wonderful dish by itself.  When we were young and we had a backyard, we used to roast those seeds and then sprinkle salt ....

All these thoughts on a cold, foggy, mid-winter morning :)

This is why your credit card debts are piling up!

All because of a 2:00 AM thing--not to be confused with the the 3:00 am phone call of the presidential primary

Insidious Worm Makes Unauthorized Purchases

More on the Supreme Court decision on free speech ...

Supreme Court Allows Corporations To Run For Political Office
WASHINGTON—In a landmark decision that overturned decades of legal precedent, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Tuesday to remove all restrictions that had previously barred corporations from holding public office. "This is an unfair, ill-advised, and tragic mistake," Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said before boarding a flight to Arizona in response to primary poll numbers that show him trailing the Phoenix-based company PetSmart by a double-digit margin. "Despite the deep discounts and exciting promotions that they may be able to offer, these huge, soulless entities are not capable of truly serving the American people's—or their pet's—needs." Corporate attack ads have already begun to hit the airwaves in New York, where a new Pepsi commercial set to a catchy modern remix of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" blasts incumbent governor David Paterson as "unrefreshing" and urges New Yorkers to "taste the choice of a new generation this Nov. 2."

Source
ahem, it is a satire :)

Will work for milk .... :(

Foreign Policy has a photo feature on children--young kids, not some 15 year olds--working alongside their parents in New Delhi, where the 2010 Commonwealth Games are scheduled to be held in October and, get this irony, a day after Gandhi's birthday!
Yet another instance when I seriously wonder: this is a country that is supposedly in competition with the US?  Come on!

More photos here
This one on the left has the following caption at FP:

When it comes to child labor laws, little headway has been made on enforcement. In fact, some, like the UNICEF-sponsored authors of "What Works for Working Children," have made the argument that child labor is better than the alternatives: no work at all or prostitution. Above, Indian children struggle to shovel rocks in front of Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi on Jan. 30.

The biggest ponzi scheme of all: graduate school!

Thomas Benton (William Pannapacker in real life) once again has a fantastic column on why graduate schooling in humanities is a Big Lie.  I would enlarge the scope to include graduate schooling in most disciplines.  This is, of course, not the first time I am blogging on this topic.  It won't be the last time either because, even as recently as a fortnight ago, I think I shocked the life out of a student who came to talk to me about grad school--shocked that student with data on debt and potential joblessness, and added that I would certainly help out if the decision--after being well informed--was to pursue grad school.  Haven't heard from that student, yet.

Anyway, Benton concludes:

Graduate school may be about the "disinterested pursuit of learning" for some privileged people. But for most of us, graduate school in the humanities is about the implicit promise of the life of a middle-class professional, about being respected, about not hating your job and wasting your life. That dream is long gone in academe for almost everyone entering it now.
If you are in one of the lucky categories that benefit from the Big Lie, you will probably continue to offer the attractions of that life to vulnerable students who are trained from birth to trust you, their teacher.
Graduate school in the humanities is a trap. It is designed that way. It is structurally based on limiting the options of students and socializing them into believing that it is shameful to abandon "the life of the mind." That's why most graduate programs resist reducing the numbers of admitted students or providing them with skills and networks that could enable them to do anything but join the ever-growing ranks of impoverished, demoralized, and damaged graduate students and adjuncts for whom most of academe denies any responsibility.

When will China lead the world? Don’t hold your breath

In a couple of recent posts, I have been commenting about a fantastic opening that the US now has to re-assert its prime position in this world.  I am glad to add this essay by Joshua Kurlantzick (ht) as additional supporting arguments; here is the concluding paragraph in that piece:

Even at the worst moments, such as the period after 9/11 in which the Bush administration created the prison at Guantanamo Bay and allowed torture and other questionable tactics, I have rarely met anyone, in any country, who wanted to move to China, or India, or even Japan, rather than the United States. Foreigners may want to spend a few years in China or India or Indonesia, to see the dynamism of these places, but few, if any, have plans to become Chinese, Indian, or Indonesian citizens. Perhaps one day China or Indonesia or India will draw these migrants, who would come seeking the same dreams and openness as they do today in the United States. But it won’t be soon - and it might not even be this century.

Yes, sir!  But, we have to work on it, eh!  Not with this kind of an awfully chaotic political crap though .... How bad is it?  Krugman has the best line:

It’s so bad that I miss Newt Gingrich.

Am dreaming of my next trip .... whenever ....

Istanbul: I really, really want to go there.  Email me your donations for my trip :)

On opposition versus obstructionism

A constructive opposition is one thing, obstructing for the sake of obstructing is another.
And, this is what James Fallows writes about that very issue:

A reader writes:

"I have been waiting for someone somewhere to relate the current Congressional impasse to the 'Turnip Day' special session that Truman called in his acceptance speech at the 1948 Democratic Convention. Some Republicans believed they should complete some unobjectionable legislation in the session, but Leader Robert Taft was adamant that they would yield nothing to 'that son of a bitch the President'. Taft succeeded in making the session an utter failure, but Truman succeeded in demonstrating that the Republicans were obstructionist and he won the campaign meme of the 'Do-Nothing Congress'."This experience of the American electorate punishing rabid partisanship seems too poignant to disappear into history, don't you agree?"

Agree! The official US Senate history of Turnip Day is here; the text of Truman's Democratic Convention speech is here, courtesy of the Miller Center's excellent presidential archives. As the Senate history says about the moment:
"At 1:45 in the morning, speaking only from an outline, Truman quickly electrified the soggy delegates. In announcing the special session, he challenged the Republican majority to live up to the pledges of their own recently concluded convention to pass laws to ensure civil rights, extend Social Security coverage, and establish a national health-care program. "They can do this job in 15 days, if they want to do it." he challenged. That two-week session would begin on "what we in Missouri call 'Turnip Day,'" taken from the old Missouri saying, "On the twenty-fifth of July, sow your turnips, wet or dry."

"Republican senators reacted scornfully. To Michigan's Arthur Vandenberg, it sounded like "a last hysterical gasp of an expiring administration." Yet, Vandenberg and other senior Senate Republicans urged action on a few measures to solidify certain vital voting blocs. "No!" exclaimed Republican Policy Committee chairman Robert Taft of Ohio. "We're not going to give that fellow anything." Charging Truman with abuse of a presidential prerogative, Taft blocked all legislative action during the futile session. By doing this, Taft amplified Truman's case against the "Do-nothing Eightieth Congress" and contributed to his astounding November come-from-behind victory."

Bad news for Euro ... good news for the dollar?

If only the state of a "permanent revolution" here in the US would calm down just a tad .... because, there is a global opportunity that we can tap into: the Euro is heading into a big fall and, yet again, the dollar and the US will be viewed as one hell of a safe investment amidst the chaos of the world.  First, from the WSJ:

The euro is likely to face further declines this week as concern over sovereign debt in Europe prompts investors to seek refuge in the perceived safety of the dollar and the yen.
Pressure on the common currency escalated last week, as worries about the soundness of debt issued by Greece spread to other fiscally stressed euro-zone nations, including Portugal and Spain.

Second, a little more on the sovereign debt, from The Economist:

As you can clearly see at right, Europe's deficit troubles began well before the global economic collapse.Now, there was an interesting discussion in the Washington office this week over whether it was possible for there to be a simultaneous crisis for all sovereign debt. While perhaps technically possible, it does seem unlikely, and so one might argue that countries with a relatively sound fiscal position, like America, have a lot of room to borrow for now, because debt worries elsewhere are causing investors to look for relatively safe havens. 

Ok, back to the WSJ:

The euro's losses were about 1.5% against the dollar last week, bringing its year-to-date slide to 4.6%. Against the yen, the common currency dropped Friday to a near 12-month low.
"Until we see signs of acceptance by those [nations] that austerity measures need to be put in place to resolve the fiscal imbalances, the euro will continue to deteriorate," said Thanos Papasavvas, head of currency management at Investec Asset Management in London, which oversees about $60 billion.
Ballooning budget deficits in euro-zone countries threaten to hurt an economic recovery, forcing the ECB to keep interest rates low longer than anticipated, in contrast to expectations of quicker increases from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

So, can the G7 do anything?  What says you, Professor Simon Johnson?

Ex-IMF chief economist Simon Johnson, also described the G7 group of leading economies as "fundamentally useless".

Johnson does not hold anything back:

Greece is an an extreme example - there I think you can see that it's going to get very messy very quickly - but unfortunately the budget situation in these other countries is also weak.
"And I have to add the UK to this list. Unless you can persuade the markets that you're really going to bring the budget under control within the foreseeable future and you're going to have some credible actions - and you're going to have to do some persuading - you're going to have big trouble."

But, Paul Krugman has a different take and, get this, it has an abbreviation that "sounds" great when you say it aloud as a word: PIIGS :) .... Krugman writes:

As Europe is roiled by sovereign debt fears, it’s important to realize that the crisis in the largest of the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain) has nothing to do with fiscal irresponsibility. ....
The point is that this has nothing to do with a spendthrift government; what’s happening to Spain reflects the inherent problems with the euro, which now more than ever looks like a monetary union too far.

 Krugman then has this update:

Update: Whoops. Yes, Italy is bigger than Spain — and it has been fiscally irresponsible. But in a way that makes the point; Spain, which has been a good actor, is in much more trouble than Italy, which hasn’t

All the economists of the world will duke this out.  As far as I am concerned, once again the US dollar becomes a safe haven--despite the humongous mess that we are in.  How bizarre, eh!

A Canadian Univ honors the Dalai Lama. So, China bans the univ.

The White House kowtowing to China over the Tibet/Dalai Lama issue is not anything new.  And with the strained Sino-US relations--recently over Taiwan, the currency, Iran's nukes--, I suppose China sees an opportunity to up its rhetoric.
But, to aim its guns at a university?  And that too in Canada? Over the university honoring the Dalai Lama?  Yep,  that is what happened:

China has taken the University of Calgary off its list of accredited universities, most likely because it gave the Dalai Lama an honorary degree last September when he visited Calgary, according to the Calgary Herald. The university has about 600 students from China and is trying to find out what the sanction means for graduates who are back in China, as well as for current students. ... The Tibetan spiritual leader did not go to the campus but received the degree at the start of a conference in the city.

Unemployment: "It's a very cruel game of musical chairs"

The mixed report on unemployment is a measure of how much we are yet to get out of the recessionary hole.

Job seekers are now out of work for an average of 30.2 weeks, or 7-1/2 months, up from a record high of 29.1 weeks the previous month. In fact, the average duration of unemployment has notched new records for the last 10 months in a row.

With more than six job seekers for every job opening, it's not surprising that it's taking that long to find work, said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a research group based in Washington. "It's a very cruel game of musical chairs."