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Getting the Actual People in Your House to Eat the Healthy Food

I've heard from quite a number of people lately who have started gardening, but find that they can't get everyone in their family onboard with the actual eating part of all these veggies. Here are some thoughts (from 2008) on how to to convince people to try the kohlrabi. Really. I think I get more requests for ideas for helping people who are on-board with the idea of sustainable eating get the rest of their families on-board than on any other food storage topic. In a perfect world, of course, our partners, roommates, children and other assorted members of our lives would say "Oh, I'm so…

A Year In Review - A Blog Around The Clock 2008

New Year's Day, a time to reminisce about the past year, perhaps to analyze its ups and downs, and in the blogosphere: to link to one's "Best of" posts for all of those who missed them. I posted 2960 posts so far this year - with six days to go I may reach 3000. It is not easy sifting through all of those, so I picked the highlights for you here. Some are milestones, some are examples from multi-post series, some are posts that provoked a lot of comments, some are posts that took a lot of time and effort to write, and some are, well, just very long. There were other posts that elicited a…

Birds in the News 111 -- Holiday Edition

tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter Male Broad-billed Hummingbird, Cynanthus latirostris, with a pollen cap. Image: Greg Scott [wallpaper size]. Birds in Science A new research paper shows that female blue tits use plumage color to clue in males of the species to their genetic quality: the brighter their blue cap coloring and their yellow collar coloring, the better mothers they make. Some birds nesting in the central and eastern United States have moved their range over a hundred miles farther north in less than three decades. Scientists at…

Markets, Mutation, and Mathematics: Why Evolution Is Counter-Intuitive

Over at Karmatics, Rob Brown thinks the counter-intuitiveness of natural selection is a big reason why people find evolution difficult to comprehend. In that way, natural selection is similar to prediction markets, where people bet on the chances of future events, such as the outcomes of sports events or political elections: Prediction markets turn out to be remarkably accurate, typically more accurate than any individual expert can predict, as non-intuitive as it may seem. Like Wikipedia, prediction markets also tap into the power of selection, but the most dramatic similarity they share…

Why Unconditional Support by Democrats for Democrats Is Bad Politics

Matthew Yglesias fires off a screed against Democrats who have told pollsters that they are unlikely to vote for Democratic congressional candidates in 2010 (I think Amanda's response sums up my thoughts rather well: people have to like this stuff, or surprisingly, they might not take the time to vote--or want to make the emotional investment in supporting you). Yglesias and others primarily pin the blame on the Blue Douchebags in the Senate. Yes, the Senate is dysfunctional. But to pin this all on Nelson, Bayh, Lieberman and the rest of the Asshole Caucus is overstating the case. Ezra…

"Fed up", not "Afraid"

A columnist for the Cincinnati Enquirer is quite irate about the fact that we squelched the zoo/creation museum deal. If you read his article, you'll discover a theme. The live Nativity at the Creation Museum will have an actual, living, cud-chewing camel. Frightening. There will also be goats and sheep. Terrifying. Cuddly lambs might seem harmless to the average visitor, but some people are scared witless by the possibility that some innocent, devout secularist could accidentally wander onto the grounds of the Creation Museum and get exposed to radioactive Christianity or other dangerous…

Public health: who cares?

I'm (more than) pleased to say the public health conversation is starting. I assume it was already going on but not where we could all hear what others were saying. So let me continue by responding to a point raised at The Pump Handle (TPH) that was also the subject of offline discussion from someone who read the post. Liz and Catherine (at TPH) made special reference to this comment from me: "If I am an ordinary person, I don't want to have to think about public health. I want it to work well but in the background, like the water system." Each had a slightly different take on it, as did my…

Public health: who cares?

by revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure I'm (more than) pleased to say the public health conversation is starting. I assume it was already going on but not where we could all hear what others were saying. So let me continue by responding to a point raised at The Pump Handle (TPH) that was also the subject of offline discussion from someone who read the post. Liz and Catherine (at TPH) made special reference to this comment from me:   "If I am an ordinary person, I don't want to have to think about public health. I want it to work well but in the background, like the water system." Each…

Time to Go?

by PotomacFeverish  In the first of what may be numerous resignations, Scott Gottlieb, MD has announced that he will leave his post as Deputy Commissioner at the Food and Drug Administration.  He has been at the center of the political science practiced at the FDA as noted by Time last year: Nowhere in the federal bureaucracy is it more important to insulate government experts from the influences of politics and special interests than at the Food and Drug Administration, the agency charged with assuring the safety of everything from new vaccines and dietary supplements to animal feed and…

GMOs: Seven Obvious Questions in Search of Straightforward Answers?

From campaignforrealfarming.org, via IR. Inspired by KK, of course. I don't know who the campaignforrealfarming are, but for the moment I'll treat them as worth talking to. You'll notice there is a total absence of refs in the piece, so I feel no obligation to provide any in response. The first three questions The first three questions are: 1: After 30 years of intense effort and huge investment, can the GM advocates offer any examples of GM food crops that have brought unequivocal benefit to humanity or to the world at large? 2: Assuming that the advocates of GM food can demonstrate…

You Can't Cook a Cow: The Problem with Raw Data

Bill Hooker is a regular advocate of "open science," and is currently supporting a new subversive proposal: to make all raw data freely available on some sort of Creative Commons type license. It sounds like a perfectly reasonable idea on the face of it, but I have to say, I'm a little dubious about it when I read things like this: First, note that papers do not usually contain raw (useful, useable) data. They contain, say, graphs made from such data, or bitmapped images of it -- as Peter says, the paper offers hamburger when what we want is the original cow.  Chris Surridge of PLoS puts it…

The Shadow of Scientific Opinion

    Wall Street's shadow in New York CityAs the education reformer and philosopher John Dewey once stated, "politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, the attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance." Unlike other critics of scientific communication, it is my contention that as long as we only address the shadow we will never create substantive change on such pressing scientific issues as health care and the climate crisis. Today James Hrynyshyn at Island of Doubt has linked to an excellent post highlighting this very concern. The post is from an anonymous employee…

Interview: Thomas A. Day

Welcome to the second in an ongoing series of Interviews with authors of Science Fiction. I'm lucky to have had a chance, recently, to review Portland local Thomas A. Day's A Grey Moon Over China, a totally postapocalyptic epic that takes the ongoing cultural fear of an energy crisis to a particularly dark and alienating place in the cosmos. He's an interesting writer for his sense of grand scope -- in the complexity of the narrative and the breadth of time it represents -- but also because of his background: he's worked in the aerospace industry, flown night-cargo planes, and developed…

Casual Fridays: You think THAT is romantic?

Last week's Casual Fridays study started out innocently enough: A contact on Twitter asked if most women would prefer fresh fruit or chocolates as a romantic gift. That's a fascinating question, I said -- maybe even interesting enough to merit study on Casual Friday. With Valentine's Day coming up, it might be a valuable service to our readers, preventing them from making a big mistake on the big day. But once we're asking, I figured, why not ask about a few other possible gifts, like jewelry or perfume. And maybe we should ask about sexy lingerie and sex toys, just to make things more…

Flat to fem?

I had originally intended to use this one for a segment of Your Friday Dose of Woo. Unfortunately, when I tried to start writing, I realized it was unsuitable. No, it wasn't unsuitable because the content wasn't delightfully loopy enough to deserve targeting. The problem was that it was an insufficient--shall we say?--target-rich environment. Again, this wasn't because the overall concept wasn't bizarre enough. No, it is certainly more than strange enough to qualify. It was that there was so little information on how this supposedly works and the little information that was there was vague in…

The "Inherent Linearity" of Class A Amplifiers?

I'm what they used to call an audiophile. What with folks listening to music on cell phones, low bit-rate MP3's and the like, it's kind of out of fashion these days. That is, unless you're into music production. In that case, you can buy all manner of interesting goodies, including microphone preamps that will set you back a kilobuck and loudspeaker cables that could pay a semester's tuition. Unfortunately, just as it was true for hi-fi enthusiasts 30 years ago, there's a lot of misinformation floating around in the semi-pro or "prosumer" music field regarding audio circuitry. I was reading…

Daylight Savings Savings?

Sometimes the little things mean a lot. I normally get out of bed around 6:00 AM. In the foothills of the Adirondacks in mid June, this means that the sky has been light for an hour. I like this. For whatever reason, my brain just doesn't want to fully engage in the morning when it's dark out. This makes the winter months a drag, but come summer, I'm in heaven. Mind you, I don't need it to be light at 4:00 AM so I am a big fan of Daylight Savings Time (DST). I love the extra hour of sun in the evening, seeing the final rays disappear well after 9:00 PM. One of the ideas behind DST was energy…

Healthcare: A Response to Galt

Or actually visitors who cite Galt. Jane Galt responds to calls for adopting a French-like system: In the United States, government at its various levels now accounts for roughly 45% of health care spending. (And by "now", I mean 2004, the latest year for which OECD data are available. In 2004, of course, the government provided little prescription drug coverage. Remember that fact; it will become important later.) The United States spends about 15.3% of total GDP on healthcare. That means, for those following along at home, that government spending on health care consumes about 7.7% of GDP…

Facts Don't Always Backfire: The Estate Tax Edition

I'm loathe to disagree with Digby because I think a variant of the Delong Rules of Krugman also apply to her too. Digby, like others on the intertubes, is very concerned about work by Brendan Nyhan, Jason Reifle, and others (covered in this Boston Globe article) which shows that: Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It's this: Facts don't necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University…

Reading Diary: Steve Jobs: Insanely great by Jessie Hartland

It's tempting to go a couple of different ways here. A book that has "Insanely Great" in the title? What could possibly go wrong? On the other hand.... A kids book about what a jerk Steve Jobs was. What could possibly go wrong? Steve Jobs: Insanely Great by Jessie Hartland. An illustrated biography of Steve Jobs aimed at a younger audience which gives an honest, unflinching look at his life, warts and all. Maybe not up to the "insanely great" standard, but engaging and enjoyable with a lot of openings for parents and children to talk about how complicated real people are. What more could you…

Yet Another Crappy Bayesian Argument

A reader sent me a link to *yet another* purported [Bayesian argument for the existence of god][unwin], this time by a physicist named Stephen Unwin. It's actually very similar to Swinburne's argument, which I discussed back at the old home of this blog. The difference is the degree of *dishonesty* demonstrated by the author. As usual, you can only see the entire argument if you [buy his book][buymybook]. But from a number of reviews of the book, and a self-interview posted on his personal website, we can get the gist. Scientific American's [review][sciam] has the best concise description of…

Exploring links between working conditions and obesity in low-wage workers

It's no secret that the U.S. has a weight problem.   Nearly 36% of U.S. adults are obese and another 33% are overweight, with respective body mass indices of 30 or higher and 25 to 29.9.   Strategies to address this public health problem rely heavily on individuals' changing their behavior, such as increasing physical activity and reducing calorie intake.   These interventions are easier said than done, and may not be making a dent in the U.S. obesity epidemic.  A result analysis suggests that by 2030, 51% of the U.S. population will be obese. A new report explores the potential links between…

Wait, don't buy an Echo yet!

I had mentioned before that we are enjoying our Amazon Echo, one of those robots that listens and then responds with a certain degree of intelligence. We don't use the Echo for very many things, but that is partly because we are not in the habit. For example, if I'm sitting in a certain chair in the library, reading, I have to stand up and turn around and kind of bend over in a certain direction to see the clock on the wall. Or, I can say, "Alexa, what time is it?" and the Echo Dot tells me. But, I almost never think of asking Alexa. But over time I'm sure I'll get in the habit, and after…

More academic journals discussing ID

(And not in a supportive way). PZ and Orac discussed a recent New England Journal of Medicine editorial critical of intelligent design. Though the article had several shortcomings, it's always a bonus to see other scientists treating ID as a valid threat (not in the scientific sphere, of course, but in the "hearts and minds" of the populace). Now the Journal of Clinical Investigation, another fairly heavy-hitter as far as medical journals go, recommends to its readers, Don't be stupid about intelligent design. Kudos to them...now come the nitpicks. :) Neill writes, For those who have had…

The Battle for Bachmann's Seat

... is all about the terrain. One might assume that Michele Bachmann's idiotic public statements on Hardball would be enough to put her down, metaphorically. It certainly was enough for the RNCCC to pull funding, for the DNCCC to toss in a million on behalf of El Tinklenberg, Bachmann's opponent, and for a couple of million dollars to pour into Tinklenberg's war chest from zillions of small donations around the country. But this is not enough. The PEOPLE of the Sixth District have to decide to vote for Tinklenberg rather than Bachmann. What will these voters do? I know the Sixth…

New Year, New Class: Gen Ed Relativity

The new academic year starts this week-- first day of classes is Wednesday-- and I'm dealing with the usual chaos associated with the influx of a new class of students. Who now look to me only a tiny bit older than SteelyKid and the Pip in the above picture (and if you think that sharing that extremely cute photo is part of the motivation for this post, well, you're not wrong...). This year, the madness of the new term is complicated by having been away for essentially all of August, and by the fact that I'm teaching an entirely new class this term: Astronomy 052: Relativity, Black Holes, and…

Enzyte exec admits they were lying

Color me unsurprised. You have no doubt seen the commercials for the herbal penis-enlarging supplement Enzyte. They feature a guy with a weird smile and his grinning wife. The pills themselves come in suspiciously medicinal-looking packaging. (With a picture of a race car on the package, you begin to wonder who their target market is...) Well, all of those guys are getting prosecuted for fraud. And one exec -- likely to save his own ass -- is coming clean. James Teegarden Jr., the former vice president of operations at Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals, explained Tuesday in U.S. District…

Why are we bailing out Detroit?

I agreed (reluctantly) with the need to bailout banks because they constitute a special case in the financial system -- the overall health of banks is linked to the overall health of the economy. I am not against bailouts per se, but the devil is in the details. There are a lot of ways that they can make recessions worse by putting inefficient companies on life support. This view of recessions is explained well on Economist Democracy in America blog: A dialectic model of the business cycle suggests that in prosperity, inefficiencies are allowed to build up alongside innovations until the…

Bluegrass in Gettysburg

Mr. Zuska and I spent a few days in Gettysburg at the Bluegrass Festival. I am a conflicted fan of bluegrass music. That is, I do love me some banjo. And hearing a good banjo, fiddle, bass, mandolin, and guitar together is, to me, a true aural delight. The problem lies with some of the lyrics. As the Steep Canyon Rangers pointed out Thursday night, there are a lot of "mean woman songs" in bluegrass. Thursday I must have heard at least three whose story went along the lines of "you done me wrong and broke my heart; that's why I had to shoot you and him with my daddy's gun; you're layin…

What's the bigger crime: Religion, non-religion, or meta-analysis?

Eric Schwitzgebel has been doing a lot of thinking about the relationship between thinking about ethical behavior and actually behaving ethically. In his most recent post, he takes on a meta-analysis claiming that religious belief correlates negatively with criminal activity: I found a 2001 "meta-analysis" (Baier & Wright) of the literature that shows all the usual blindnesses of meta-analyses. Oh, you don't know what a meta-analysis is? As usually practiced, it's a way of doing math instead of thinking. First, you find all the published experiments pertinent to Hypothesis X (e.g., "…

A plumbing parable

My kitchen sink has a problem. Something has broken inside the Moen faucet, so that the handle is loose and only marginally effective. I'm thinking I should run down to the hardware store and get a new faucet assembly, and get under the sink with a pipe wrench. It shouldn't be too difficult. Right away, I run into an obstacle. I get down to the basement to fetch my wrench, and there's one of the local ministers sitting on the toolbox. "Have you tried the incredible power of prayer yet, son?" he asked. I said no, of course not. I'm trying to fix a broken faucet. And then he gave me one of…

The wild Weil world of woo

Dr. Weil is often seen as the smiling "mainstream" of alternative medicine. He's a real doctor (unlike, say, Gary Null), and much of what he advocates is standard and uncontroversial nutritional advice. But Weil illustrates the two biggest problems with so-called alternative medicne: once you've decided science is dispensible, the door is open to anything, no matter how insane; and no matter how altruistic you may start, sooner or later you start selling snake oil. Most doctors out there are working hard to help their patients prevent and overcome disease use the available evidence.  …

Bonking in the Name of Science

Mary Roach, author of Stiff and Spook, has a new book debuting this month: Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. To promote her new book, Roach is making the interview rounds. Check out her interview with Katharine Mieszkowski for Salon: Getting it on for science. An excerpt pertaining to sexual arousal in women follows: Edited to add a video of Mary Roach discussing Bonk; be sure to check it out, particularly her remarks on Danish swine sex! Thanks to Steve C. from W.W. Norton for providing the clip. There can be a split between what the sex researchers measure happening in…

Hello, World Science Festival 2010 [2010 World Science Festival Blog]

You may have noticed things look a little different around here. We’ve gussied up for the 2010 iteration of our flagship festival, which officially went on sale last week. There are still a few bugs we’re ironing out on the site (please bear with us!) and a couple of exciting programs yet to be announced, but the important thing is that tickets are now on sale. And if previous years are any indication (2008 and 2009), you may want to hurry to reserve your seats. Tickets tend to sell out very quickly. There’s a LOT to be excited about this year. Let's see, where to begin... Legendary…

Lead Poisoned Workers in Alaska: Miners Beware!

The State of Alaska's Department of Health and Social Services recently released a report on work-related lead poisoning over the last 12 years (1995-2006).  I was shocked to read that 94 percent of the workers (289 men) with blood-lead levels above 25 ug/dL were employed in the mining industry.  A follow-up story by Elizabeth Bluemink of the Anchorage Daily News reports that most of the adult blood-lead laboratory results came from the Red Dog lead-zinc mine near Kotzebue, Alaska.  Although there is no MSHA standard to protect miners from lead poisoning, Teck Cominco Alaska Inc. has some…

I am Eagle! I am Eagle!

In the lucid 1960's, the futurist Stewart Brand began a public campaign for NASA to release a satellite image of the whole Earth taken from space, an image which was at the time only rumored to exist. Brand, forever the "big-picture" thinker, noted that "this little blue, white, green and brown jewel-like icon amongst a quite featureless black vacuum," would serve both as a potent symbol for humanity and as a firm kick-start for a legitimate environmentalism movement. With the rapid progress of the Apollo program, NASA eventually did release such an image -- though whether this was due to…

iPhone Sausage Making

Mac Users Guide Flickr Photostream As a technophile, I do love my iPhone and iPod as portable portals to new media, the web and entertainment. But everything comes at a price. I was reminded of this, starkly, by a brilliant commentary by Mike Daisy, featured recently on NPR's This American Life. That sausage may be delicious, but few of us want to be reminded of how it came to be. So it goes for iPhones, even for something as mundane as to how their screens are cleaned in the factory. From This American Life broadcast, "Mr. Daisy and The Apple Factory:" Mike Daisey performs an excerpt…

Hello, World Science Festival 2010

You may have noticed things look a little different around here. We’ve gussied up for the 2010 iteration of our flagship festival, which officially went on sale last week. There are still a few bugs we’re ironing out on the site (please bear with us!) and a couple of exciting programs yet to be announced, but the important thing is that tickets are now on sale. And if previous years are any indication (2008 and 2009), you may want to hurry to reserve your seats. Tickets tend to sell out very quickly. There’s a LOT to be excited about this year. Let's see, where to begin... Legendary…

What's new at HuffPo? Disease promotion, that's what.

I can't tell if it is a trend yet, but it seems there has been a bit of a decrease in the outright quackery published in the Huffington Post lately. But that doesn't mean it's disappeared, and the poor quality of the writing more than makes up for the decreased quantity. Case in point: Why We Overreacted to an Ordinary Flu, by Philip Slater, a sociologist with no medical education (a point that becomes evident very quickly). For example: In an online newsletter recently some mad housewives were sharing tips on how best to triple-wash and triple-sterilize their countertops. What on earth…

Netroots Nation recap

I know it's been a week since I got back from Netroots Nation, so this is a rather belated report, but I have a good excuse. I was on the road for 4 weeks before NrN, and it's taken me a little while to get caught up again. Netroots Nation was awesome. It'll be in Las Vegas next year, and should be even better. It'll be the 5th year, returning to the scene of the first convention, back when it was called YearlyKos. They put on a great conference, and it's a great time. Next year it's the weekend before my birthday, which should be extra-fun. This year was more subdued than last year,…

Cattle genetic variation & evolution

There are some papers out on the genome of the domestic cow out right now. ScienceNews has an overview: Two competing research teams have cataloged the "essence of bovinity" found in the DNA of cattle, but not without disagreement on some essential points. Reporting online April 23 in Science and April 24 in Genome Biology, the two groups compiled drafts of the bovine genome, identifying genes important for fighting disease, digesting food and producing milk. I don't see the Genome Biology paper on the site yet, but there are two in Science. First, The Genome Sequence of Taurine Cattle: A…

Can CDC get a life?

When I started talking about this with friends and colleagues several months ago they thought I was quite crazy. But then they've thought that for a long time. It's mainly a source of amusement. I hope. Anyway. What I was talking about is using the online virtual world, Second Life, for public health purposes. Second Life (SL) is a "3D online digital world imagined, created and owned by its residents." Over 1.3 million have logged on in the last 60 days. You participate by constructing a 3D representation of yourself called an avatar. If you are an old geezer like me, there is a pretty steep…

A 'spirituality' query

I recently got a short email interview on the subject of science and spirituality. Now I should warn you: "spirituality" is one of those words that sets my teeth on edge and triggers a reflexive reach for my kukri. It's an empty buzzword that some people use as a placeholder for "deep feelings of connectedness to the universe", but that I read as "mindless blithering; brains on the fritz", so I respond to questions like that with an immediate rejection of the premise. The writer seemed like a nice person, though, and the questions are well-intentioned, so after barking out my answers I…

Nurturant is not Coddly!

I wrote this on September 21, 2004, as a reaction to the misunderstanding of Lakoff's term "Nurturant Parent". Slightly edited (eliminated bad links and such). Discussions of Lakoff's theory are going on in several places in the blogosphere, including on DailyKos and many other places...just Google it and you'll be floored. Spend some times reading the comments - there is some good thinking there. There is something happening in these discussions that really bothers me. There is a number of people, including some who claim to have read "Moral Politics", who object to the use of family-based…

ACSH Attacks Animal Science on Carcinogens

By Ruthann Rudel and Dick Clapp Two recent papers by Ruthann Rudel and Julia Brody published in the journal Cancer compiled a list of 216 chemicals shown to cause mammary gland tumors in animal studies and presented a comprehensive state-of-the-science review of environmental factors in breast cancer.  When such important studies are published, itâs typical for the chemical industry or its surrogates to attack them. In this case, Elizabeth Whelan, president of the industry-backed American Council on Science and Health, fired off a response that questioned whether findings from animal cancer…

Science, Art, Education, Communication

The September 2007 issue of JCOM - Journal of Science Communication - (issue 3, volume 7) is online.: Next issue will be online on the 18th December 2008. There are several articles in this issue that I find interesting and bloggable. Contents: EDITORIAL - The better you know, the better you make your choice. The need for a scientific citizenship in the era of knowledge by Pietro Greco: Martin W. Bauer is right, two evolutionary processes are under way. These are quite significant and, in some way, they converge into public science communication: a deep evolution of discourse is unfolding,…

Nurturant is not Coddly!

I wrote this on September 21, 2004, as a reaction to the misunderstanding of Lakoff's term "Nurturant Parent". Slightly edited (eliminated bad links and such). Discussions of Lakoff's theory are going on in several places in the blogosphere, including on DailyKos and many other places...just Google it and you'll be floored. Spend some times reading the comments - there is some good thinking there. There is something happening in these discussions that really bothers me. There is a number of people, including some who claim to have read "Moral Politics", who object to the use of family-based…

Video and Slides from AGU Panel: Re-Starting the Conversation on Climate Change

Slides and synchronized video of the presentations from the AGU panel "Re-Starting the Conversation on Climate Change: The Media, Dialogue, and Public Engagement Workshop" are now online. Below I link to each of the presentations highlighting key themes or conclusions and the minute mark in the video. Mass Media and the Cultural Politics of Climate Change Max Boykoff, Ph.D. University of Colorado-Boulder Mass media serve vital roles in the communication processes between science, policy-makers and the public. This presentation reviews contextual factors as well as journalistic pressures…

The ACA marketplace is beginning to stabilize. But it can’t withstand federal sabotage.

There was always an assumption that the Affordable Care Act would need time to find its sea legs. That’s why it included measures to shield insurers from the potential profit losses that inherently come with offering millions more people better health coverage at more reasonable prices. Insurers operate on profit margins and the ACA took that into account, for better or for worse. But it’s still been a rocky road for insurers. (Insert argument here for single-payer health care, but that’s a different story.) On the patient side, with 20 million more Americans insured and growing accounts of…

Cult of the Purple Cow

No, it's not another spoof religion like the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and it's not a real religion for people to get outraged over. The title refers to my college alumni organization-- Williams uses a cow as the unofficial mascot, and the school colors are purple and gold, so little purple cows are all over everything. But as Kate has noted many times, there's a certain cult-like air surrounding Williams alumni (she only married into the cult). It's sort of hard to explain what I'm talking about, but possibly the best example is the story of the Alumni Review. Many colleges and universities…