New Orleans' crucial role in the history and the development of the United States

Very interesting piece in the LATimes about New Orleans and the crucial role that it has played in the history and the development of the United States.

New Orleans' raison d'être by George FriedmanGeorge

Putnam on 9-11 and social capital

An interesting piece by Robert D. Putnam and Thomas Sander in today's Washington Post.

Sept. 11 as Civics Lesson

World Bank views on Social Capital

Before the paper shifts to a focus on the details of the "social capital assessment tool," there is an very interesting discussion of social capital (and of the challenges that are encountered by those trying to get a handle on the concept) at
SOCIAL CAPITAL ASSESSMENT TOOL

One particularly noteworthy passage:

What is social capital in one context can be unsocial [their emphasis] capital in another. The Church that supports brotherhood and peace in one context becomes a forum for armed militancy in another. Unions that may promote coordination and cooperation with the state in a corporatist context can wage bitter confrontation in another context.

At the risk of being ridiculous (hasn't stopped me before), I will confess that the difficulties in nailing down just what should be meant by "social capital" do remind me of pre-Newtonian struggles to come up with an effective definition for "mass."

Multicultural Myers-Briggs distributions

One of the first thoughts that came to mind after this morning's conversation was to look at Myers-Briggs distributions in different societies/cultures.

Here's a link to:Multicultural Use of the MBTI® Instrument

Teaching consensus science conservatively?

from
Teaching Science
by John Derbyshire in the National Review

A very good and well-reasoned piece about the teaching of evolution, even though I disagree with the main conclusion that we should teach "consensus science conservatively":

What, then, should we teach our kids in high-school science classes? The answer seems to me very obvious. We should teach them consensus science, and we should teach it conservatively. Consensus science is the science that most scientists believe ought to be taught. "Conservatively" means eschewing theories that are speculative, unproven, require higher math, or even just are new, in favor of what is well settled in the consensus. It means teaching science unskeptically, as settled fact.

He makes good points in support of this, and he might be right -- but it is my strong intuition that there is a better solution.

I would elaborate, but do not have enough room here in the margin. (This comment is included for Bill's amusement.)

"Oil-spot strategy" in Iraq

From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2005

How to Win in Iraq By Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr.

Very thought-provoking piece.

U.S. and Iraqi forces should adopt an "oil-spot strategy" in Iraq, which is essentially the opposite approach. Rather than focusing on killing insurgents, they should concentrate on providing security and opportunity to the Iraqi people, thereby denying insurgents the popular support they need. Since the U.S. and Iraqi armies cannot guarantee security to all of Iraq simultaneously, they should start by focusing on certain key areas and then, over time, broadening the effort -- hence the image of an expanding oil spot....

...Coalition forces and local militias, such as the Kurdish Pesh Merga, now provide a high level of security in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces. These areas comprise the country's true "Green Zone" (the term normally used to describe the heavily fortified part of Baghdad where U.S. headquarters are located). In these provinces, people lead relatively normal and secure lives. The rest of the country -- the "Red Zone" -- is made up of the generally unsecured provinces of Anbar, Baghdad, Nineveh, and Salah ad Din, each of which has a sizable or dominant Sunni Arab population. The oil-spot campaign should start by enhancing security in the Green Zone. The U.S. and Iraqi governments should also focus reconstruction efforts here, in order to reward loyalty to the government and to minimize "security premium" expenses on projects.

Stunning Stats on Views of Evolution

70 percent of white evangelical Protestants say that life has existed in its present form since the beginning of time.

From Pew Research Center -- Public Divided on Origins of Life
(Released: August 30, 2005)