Palm Tolerable

Bobby calls me out for treating "proper regulation" as readily available fairy dust--just sprinkle some over your proposed solution to any problem, and enjoy the results:

Logging is the second resource-extraction issue in a week that you've said would be beneficial if it was "properly regulated." The other was your post on fracking. But when I read the words "properly regulated", I mentally substitute in the words "magical ponycorns prevent regulatory capture." So, I read your statements as "...logging, if magical ponycorns prevent regulatory capture, is generally good for the world," and "fracking, if magical ponycorns prevent regulatory capture, is safe."

And I don't necessary disagree with either of those statements, its just that I think that experience from the myriad regulatory failures of the Bush administration has shown that, even in cases where magical ponycorns may briefly exist, all it takes is for a "business friendly" administration to come to power to make all those nasty 'ol job-killing, regulation-loving ponycorns go away.

Proper regulation is great, but I think that, because it so often falls short, it is too thin of a crutch to lean on as a suitable palliative to the ecological damage caused by resource-extraction industries.

I've been thinking about this during my many airport visits this weekend, and I agree, but not entirely. I think that "proper regulation" can be interpreted to suggest an optimal framework, but the fact is that every transaction will still have winners and losers--more money for the girl scouts (or cheaper thin mints for us) if the loggers are allowed to decimate the rain forest in Malaysia, increased poverty for workers in the developing world if we impose standards on them that we ourselves ignored at a similar state, when we were clearing all the timber in the country to create space for agriculture and community.

Perhaps better, to take a lesson from Adam Smith:

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.

"Tolerable" being the key word, and perhaps a better substitute for "proper" than ponycorn . There is so much beyond our control, and the system is so complex, that the character of our regulatory framework seems only a small factor in our future prosperity. If I had to list the top ten factors likely to impact me over the next four years, the policies favored by Barrack Obama or Mitt Romney are not going to make it--and my life is likely to be substantially the same under either as it was during the previous two administrations. I shudder at the prospect of President Romney, as I did at President Bush, but nevertheless.

But that said, there are countries without "tolerable" regulatory frameworks, and that does seem to have a limiting effect on development. It's better obviously, for Nigeria, to have oil wealth, but better still, if they can regulate the industry in a tolerable way, whether it be like Norway, which created a sovereign fund to manage its profits, or the United States, which has environmental safeguards and penalties to prevent and deter accidents. 

Anything will work, as long as it satisfies some basic tests of fairness. That doesn't avoid the ponycorn entirely, but it does make it a little less chimerical.

High Camp

Readers will know a little about this family's proclivity for summer camp. This weekend marked what I think is the high point of ridiculous. Thanks to Worldwide's surfeit of frequent flier miles and the perquisites of "titanium" status, or some such elevated aviary caste, she was able to set up a complicated, complimentary plan for me to get the OG to Ontario from dance camp in North Carolina; pick up the BG from theater camp in Ontario; escort the BG to animal camp in Missouri; and return home. And all in the space of a weekend, with time to see both daughters perform.

On Friday night, I went to see the OG perform at her dance camp. She was in 5 dances--hip hop, jazz, contemporary and world, as well as a duo, which she earned by winning the duo or group competition among campers. She and her roommate performed a very entertaining routine, set to "Loathing" from Wicked.

After the performance, we packed up, returned home and got ready to leave the next day. Rather than unpack, we decided to supplement the camp suitcase with a couple of things, and trust in the provenance of G Hel to sort out the laundry. We left the house shortly after 4 AM, and encountered a slight problem at the Raleigh Airport, when the usually easy-to-negotiate Terminal 2 was packed with passengers. Someone told me that because Saturday is a big day for international flights, the airport is busiest at that time. Who knew?

But luckily our boarding passes had "TITANIUM" printed on them, and a helpful United employee--assuring me that we didn't need to be the playas ourselves, but that the halo came with the ticket--steered us into the exclusive line, bypassing the scores of people waiting in the snaking line with looks ranging from grim determination to utter panic. So we made our flight, as well as our Dulles connection without incident, and drove up to Gananoque in a rented car, arriving just in time for a 2 PM performance of Treasure Island. Although they both had smaller roles, the BG and her cousin, as, respectively, blind and hard-of-hearing pirates, had a number of funny lines involving their disabilities. Suffice it to say that the jokes were not quite as funny the second time, at the evening performance,

With the OG set for a playwriting workshop next week at the Thousand Islands playhouse, after the show, the BG and I got ready for a flight to St. Louis and a two-week session at Cub Creek Animal and Science Camp. I set the alarm for 4:45, and we were in the Tim Horton's drive thru by 5:10, delighted to find it open, but devastated that the filled donuts (BG likes her jellies) were not yet ready.

Because of the uncertainty of the border crossing, I had left us plenty of cushion for the two hour drive to Syracuse, and when we stopped near the airport to fill up, we discovered that our flight was delayed, and that we would likely miss our connection in Cleveland, and have to get a flight to Missouri the following day, checking in to camp a day late. Since the connection was scheduled to leave only 5 minutes after our delayed flight was now scheduled to land, I harbored  hope that we still might make it, and prepped the BG for a mad dash through the airport.

But of course we didn't, and as we walked to the counter, I told the BG to work on her sad face, hoping that the prospect of their union requirements for flight crew rest periods denying a child the first day of animal camp might spur United to help us get to St. Louis. And although, seemingly to her credit, the agent did spend an awful lot of time hitting various keys and staring intently at her screen, she was unable to do anything for us, so we checked into an airport hotel, enjoyed a lunch of tacos with a shell made from real Doritos (a family joke inspired by a commercial that aired incessantly during the NBA playoffs about a group of friends who drove across country to get their hands on this amazing product) and headed over to the mall to purchase some things from the packing list that we had forgot. I must say, that after the "Locos Tacos" had gotten a relatively positive review in the New York Times (the New York Times!), and as a lover of Doritos, I was intrigued, but the product tasted like a regular Taco Bell taco that had been coated with the powder from the bottom of a Doritos bag. It was really kind of gross. Oh well, perhaps the advertising is not to be believed. After the mall, we read for awhile (Thirteen + 1 for the BG, the Lacuna for me), had dinner at the Olive Garden (my first time), watched some of the Olympics and went to bed, preparing for my third straight pre-5 AM wake up call.

Monday morning, we returned our rented car, had breakfast at the airport and arrived in St. Louis at about 8 AM Central Time. Hopping into my third rental car of the weekend, we made the two hour drive to Rolla, Missouri, and I left the BG with the critters and the cheerful counsellors.

I had been hoping to spend Monday morning seeing a bit of St. Louis, but the delay forced me to limit my excursion to lunch at a BBQ place along the old Route 66. Despite the positive reviews from Yelp, I found the food disappointing, and the vibe of the place made me feel like it had been conceived and designed at Bain headquarters.

I got back to the airport in time for my return to Raleigh; started my second book (A Short History of Progress) and, after the second worst sandwich of my life waiting for my connection at the Newark Airport, touched down in Raleigh at 11:30, where the car that had taken the OG and me to the airport on Saturday morning was waiting. I'll pick up the BG in two weeks, after driving up to Gananoque, before my Grandmother's 100th birthday, flying out of Syracuse again, and the whole family will drive back to reality, capping another busy summer. But 6 airports, two countries, 6 states, three cars and three camps in four days deserves to be celebrated. Or something.

Future Development

I want to add a couple of things to my post yesterday about Malaysia, and how recently its independence has come, and to the country's economic growth lauded by LDWorldwide today. The first is a cool video from Farnam Street showing the waning influence of the big colonial powers over the period 1800-2011.

The other is from Tyler Cowen, citing  a paper by the Harvard economist Dani Rodrik:

Almost all of the growth miracles of the last 60 years were based on rapid industrialization. Today, technological changes and global competition are fostering rapid de-industrialization (in terms of employment shares) almost everywhere. This makes me wonder whether the kind of rapid growth experienced by countries like South Korea, Taiwan, and China will ever become possible elsewhere.

This fits with Race Against the Machine, a book I read last year about how automation is eliminating all kind of jobs, making things cheaper for consumers and industries more profitable, but at the same time, without providing jobs for humans. People are frequently incredulous when they hear that manufacturing output in the US has been steadily increasing over the last 40 years. Check out this chart:



A one sentence history of industrial trade and globalization would involve manufacturing jobs migrating to lower cost centers, beginning with Manchester's textile mills moving to New England and then North Carolina, and then overseas, continuing with the "made in japan" period of the 1950s and 60s and bringing us to today's China. Now, trends suggest distribution costs may be the key driver, and the products will return to where the consumers are, but without the jobs.

Still, I have to believe that it's a net gain for the U.S. economy if my jeans are made most economically in North Carolina, (or if I can print them at home), but one wonders where developing countries will be able to find a comparative advantage in the future.

I might actually follow the election, if either candidate were talking about this issue, rather than claiming that he is going to create more manufacturing jobs by either taxing the rich, or cutting their taxes. The future looks wondrous, but also seismic, and I'm not sure we are doing much to prepare for it. But then again, maybe that's the best approach, and our society just needs to adapt, as these things happen. Predictions are hard, especially about the future.

Palm Wonderful

With Worldwide in Malaysia, I thought I'd take a look at the country this morning. It had visitors from India and China has early as the first century, was colonized by the Portuguese, and then the Dutch, and the British, gaining its independence in the 1960s. After reading Caribbean earlier this year, and watching Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy the other night, I'm particularly struck by the scale of recent progress in the world. Or maybe I'm getting old. To think that, in my lifetime, British intelligence was jockeying with the Soviets for "crucial" geopolitical information, and countries around the world were finally achieving independence from their colonial carpetbaggers; it seems like another era, which I suppose it is.

Anyway, talking to Worldwide yesterday, celebrating our 15th anniversary yesterday and today due to our 12 hour time difference, she mentioned that everyone in Malaysia wants to produce palm oil, a product that is used in cooking oil, for industrial baking, margarine and elsewhere. Well, like almost anything, if you Google the product, you find that there is a heated debate on the subject.

Who to believe, the American Palm Oil Council, which asserts the health benefits of the product (no trans-fats) and the ecological benefits of its cultivation, or the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which counters with accusations that the product contributes to heart disease, and that its producers are destroying the rain forest. Do the Girl Scouts know they put this evil liquid in their cookies, the Rainforest Action Network wants to know?

I tend toward the belief that the link between fat and heart disease is tenuous at best, and that logging, if properly regulated, is generally good for the world. But it's hard to shout that from the rooftops.

Food Matters

I've been reading Mark Bittman's Food Matters this week. We have a bit of a Love/Hate relationship with the New York Times' Food critic in our house. I love his pieces in the magazine, where he lays out templates for a style or type of cooking. For instance, his piece last Sunday on kebabs was like an entire cookbook in one page.

On the other hand, a lot his work seems designed to remove all of the pleasure from eating. Don't eat meat. Don't drink milk. Don't eat refined foods. I mean, what's left? Is a life without pleasure worth living?

After reading the book, I can see that his approach is a little more nuanced. He loves food and wine, so the deal that he had made with himself is that the rules don't apply after 6 pm (although he tries to be mindful of them), and that, as George Orwell recommended, he'll break any of them sooner than do anything outright barbarous. Because it's not the occasional indulgence, or the crash diet that matters; it's your lifestyle over the years. That's a message that for me is a little more, um, palatable, and it fits with the way I like to eat.

So my takeaway from the book is to eat more whole grain, especially at breakfast. This shouldn't be hard, since I'm a sucker for beans and rice, and, although I would have fought it as a child, I have no problem with brown rice today. After my shrimp and grits, I've been making griddle cakes with the leftover grits, dusting them with flour and frying them up in a little vegetable oil. I also topped a barley pilaf with steak off the grill, and last night, I tried the flatbread recipe from the Bittman book (without the onion and rosemary), with the whole wheat flour from my brother in law's Wisconsin mill. The results were inconclusive. It was dead simple to make--mix flour salt and water, throw it into a hot pan coated with olive oil and bake for 30 minutes--but it stuck to the pan, and the texture was a little to pancakey for my taste. I used it to make quasi-quesadillas, using the leftover pimento cheese, and that worked pretty well. I think I may not have let the oil get hot enough in the oven before adding the batter, but if the results are similar next time, I'm inclined to make tortillas, which are almost as simple.

Family Traditions

The BG is at theater camp this week, cast with her cousin as pirates in Treasure Island. When my niece was examining her pirate hat, she discovered the OG's name inside. She had worn the same hat in a performance of "A Pirate's Life for Me" a couple of summers ago.  Cute, Marie. Real cute.

Bunk Notes II

I left my home on Wesley,
Up the hill toward UNC,
'Cause summer time is for camping
And the ADTC is just what I need.

Chillin' at the ADTC,
Hip hop, plus jazz and contemporary;
Chillin' at the ADTC, It's a good time.

Just dance, that is what we do,
We rock, but we can all roll too.
We can't sit still, we've got to always try a brand new move,
So we'll get right into the groove.

Pimento Cheese

One of our culinary discoveries since moving to the south is pimento (or pimiento) cheese, a dish which, according to a 2007 NPR story "is so ingrained in the lives of many Southerners that we don't realize our passion for the stuff doesn't exist outside the region." In fact, a friend recommended the Whole Foods version, which we tried and enjoyed, and, when we were in Potomac for an occasion a couple of years ago, I popped into the Mclean store, thinking that I would introduce the dish to my inlaws as an appetizer for a meal I was doing. When I couldn't find it, I asked the lady beyond the counter where I could find pimento cheese. She looked at me quizzically. "What?" "Pimento cheese." I said. "Nope." So its reach doesn't seem to extend to Northern Virginia.

In looking for a recipe to share with this post, I assumed that either my Junior League of Raleigh or "Best of the South" cookbooks would have a recipe. Neither did, and I suspect that this is because the dish is seen as low-class, perhaps because its origins are traced to the glory days of the textile industry, when workers, who were not allowed to take lunch breaks, would eat white bread pimiento cheese sandwiches at their looms. It is only recently that the dish has been reclaimed, and reworked into aberrations such as pimento cheese scones or panko-crusted deep fried pimento cheese. The only way I've eaten it, besides on a piece of bread, is in a grilled cheese sandwich or atop a burger. Both are incredible. Here is the recipe from Southern Living:

Basic Pimiento Cheese Recipe
1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
1 (4-oz.) jar diced pimiento, drained
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. finely grated onion
1/4 tsp. ground red pepper
1 (8-oz.) block extra-sharp Cheddar cheese, finely shredded
1 (8-oz.) block sharp Cheddar cheese, shredded

Stir together first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; stir in cheese. Store in refrigerator up to 1 week.

Bunk Notes

The OG is spending two weeks at American Dance Training Camp, which has moved from last year's location at Western Carolina University, to the state's flagship institution here in Chapel Hill. Last night was the end of session 1, and I went up to see the performance, which took place at the School's Center for Dramatic Art. The OG was in three performances, jazz, hip hop and contemporary, and looked like she would be right at home at half court of the Verizon center, or in a Paula Abdul video, circa 1989.

The camp has a feature called bunk notes, where, for a small fee, parents can compose messages to their children online, for printing and delivery to the campers. I wrote the note below this morning, and thought it might be fun to share an annotated version. The OG will assuredly pick up on all of the references.

Bunk Note, July 21, 8:30 AM.

 It's been, One Week, like the Barenaked Ladies.
If I had to give the kid a letter-type grade, she's
A plus--moves better than Jagger,
Feat on the beat, and complete with swagger,
Hot like the Heat and I'm no bragger.

Coolin' her heels in a UNC dorm,
Workin' like Mike, (day and night) on form.
Dedicated camper with the megawatt smile,
Educated dancer with the Peggy Lee style.
See you next Friday for another great show,
Hallelujah girl, I just love you so.

Great Dancing.
Proud to be your dad.

Profane Thoughts

On the way to the airport the other day, Worldwide and I were talking about profanity, and our approach to it vis a vis the Gs. As someone who doesn't really swear, except when I'm singing along with West Coast Rap (Explicit), and whose friends' and colleagues' use of profanity seems to bear scant relationship to their thoughtfulness or intelligence, I'm conflicted. You can call someone a jerk or an asshole, and the intent is not affected by whether the term employed is allowed on the Disney Channel or not.

So what message are we sending to our children, when pop songs containing forbidden words appear all over the radio with strategically placed bleeps? I'm afraid we're turning the whole thing into a joke, with the added detriment of endowing a set of words with the intoxicating allure of the forbidden. Better, I think, to show our kids by example how to use proper grammar, to help them understand that some may be offended by language, and to treat profanity in movies or song as just words in a work of art, which sometimes makes it better; sometimes worse.

Everyone knows from experience that their kids' exposure to profanity at school, and on the playground is unavoidable. But we can help them understand, at home, and through exposure to the arts, how truly powerful words can be. There doesn't seem to be anything gained from covering their ears, let alone washing their mouths out with soap.

Shrimp and Grits

The Stay at Stove Dad blog has been talking about grits over the last week or so. That got me to thinking about shrimp and grits, which are a regular at our table since we took up residence in the South. The cheese grits are vegetarian, although I'll have to prepare something different for the OG, which usually means a burger or a hot dog. With Worldwide off to Malaysia, and the Gs away, I had no such worries, so last night I experimented.

One of the most fun things about cooking for me is the efficient use of leftover ingredients--making something from nothing, as Ice-T says.  I had the pulp of three big tomatoes and some cilantro left over from salsa the other night, so I decided to try a paella inspired shrimp and grits. I made the grits with chicken stock and a pinch of saffron, and cooked a chorizo, along with the shrimp (both of which I keep on hand in the freezer), and I made the roux with bacon fat instead of butter, since I have lots on hand thanks to the OG's love of a couple of rashers at breakfast.

The result was middling. The saffron didn't come through in the grits, perhaps overwhelmed by the cheese, or because it was not good quality (it was the first pinch from a supermarket brand, which I have never bought before). And I think I should have added some paprika to the shrimp. But the original is a winner. I adapted my recipe from Epicurious, omitting 3 cups of milk, along with 4 cups of water in cooking the grits, replacing the cream with half and half, and eschewing a recommended parmesan cheese garnish.

7 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned grits
3 cups grated cheddar cheese (12 ounces)
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 medium green bell peppers, seeded and chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
1 jalapeño, seeded and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 cups half and half
Two 14 1/2-ounce cans diced tomatoes
2 pounds large shrimp, peeled and deveined
Hot sauce
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, for garnish

Combine water and salt in a large pot. Bring to a boil. Whisk in the grits. Reduce temperature to medium low. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes, until thickened. Remove from heat. Stir in the cheese. Cover and reserve.

While the grits are cooking, melt the butter in a large skillet, over medium heat. Add the flour, stir and cook until the mixture is golden, 3-5 minutes. Add the peppers, onions, garlic and jalapeno, salt, pepper and garlic, and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Whisk in the cream, then add tomatoes and 2/3 cup of water. Add the shrimp and cook, stirring occasionally, until the shrimp are opaque, 5 minutes. Serve over grits.Add salt and pepper, hot sauce to taste. Garnish with parsley.

The blog referenced above, introduced me to this song, which is an excellent thing to have playing in the  background while you're cooking, Little Milton's "Grits ain't Groceries."

Reinventing Libraries

Over at the New Republic, David Bell imagines the future of libraries, while Slate's Matt Yglesias wishes they would lend power tools, and other things people need, but use infrequently. I've written before about how great it is to have the Chapel Hill library at the mall, and how sorry I am that the plan to permanently locate here was rejected. Buildings that provide clusters of goods and services seem like an excellent way to build community, and to make optimal use of existing infrastructure.

There is too much concern for the need to immediately access and borrow books, when fewer people read, and technology makes paper copies unnecessary. But taxpayer-funded public spaces and repositories of information offering expert advice to citizens ought to endure.

The Gas is Greener.

This summer, up and down the East Coast, as well as around the Triangle, I've been seeing a few "No Fracking" signs on lawns and telephone poles. A few states (NY, NJ and MD) have imposed temporary bans on the practice. I've also been reading a bit about the gas boom in the United States--about how North Dakota is thriving, and natural gas is cheaper than ever. To help sort out what this means for the future, the Economist has a special report in this week's issue. My takeaways after reading  it this morning is that, properly regulated, fracking is safe, and that we should be preparing for a century of gas power, while at the same time, figuring out what source we will transition to in the following century. That's the kind of visionary statement I'd love to hear from our president.

Following are my notes from the report. Like everything, I think the solution is somewhere between "no fracking" and "drill baby, drill," and I hope that's how the debate proceeds.

• Gas is not like other commodities, because it is difficult to transport. This means that there is not a global price, like there is for oil. Gas is ten times more expensive in Asia than it is in North America.
• There are about 200 years worth of global gas reserves, with the Arctic possibly holding an additional bonanza.
• Gas is 50% cleaner than coal for generating power. And 25% cleaner than gasoline
• Shale gas (i.e. fracked) constitutes 1/3 of current US supplies.
• Over the past 5 years, US greenhouse emissions have dropped 450 million tonnes.
• 40% of America's total energy consumption is from residential and commercial buildings.
• The current gas price is the equivalent of $15 for a barrel of oil.
• Fracking has a very small footprint above ground, and takes place thousands of feet below the water table.
• There have been only a few instances of ground water contamination in the over 20,000 wells drilled in the last decade, and ALL due to breaches of existing regulations.
• Fracking does use lots of water, but over its lifetime, a well uses less than a Florida golf course consumes in 3 weeks.
• The biggest shale gas reserves may be in China, which is trying mightily to use more gas to generate electricity and power cars.
• Liquefied Natural Gas (which is more easily transported) is five times more expensive in Europe and Asia than the US, suggesting exporting opportunities.
• Fracking allows more countries to produce gas, which mitigates the risks of OPEC style cartelization of the industry.

I haven't heard anyone say that a country powered by natural gas would be a cleaner one, with more local jobs, less dependent on shadowy regimes in the Middle East, but it seems like a convincing one; and it's not something that depends on a technological breakthrough. It may win the battle of the marketplace anyway, but it seems like a few nudges (incentives for gas-fired power plants and electric cars) would help to speed the plow.

Express Yourself

One of the things I love about Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm is their critical analysis of social norms: Is it OK to dip a chip after one bite? Can you break up with a friend? How many tasting spoons can you request at an ice cream parlor?

Today at Kroger, I was in the Express lane. I remember the epistemological conversations my brother and I used to have trying to rationalize its use: 4 cans of beans is one item (Beans). Bananas and oranges are fruit--1 thing, right? But we never had the nerve to push too far beyond the posted limit.

The lane I was in today was for shoppers with orders of "About 20 items or less." I noticed the insertion of the weasel word "about," trying to indicate some flexibility for shoppers pressed for time. But the woman in front of me had between 40-60 items, by any count. I wondered if she was considering splitting them into two orders, a move my brother and I have used in the past, though never alone. But she could claim that she was doing her mom's shopping as well, or something like that.

I was in no hurry, but I raised an eyebrow nonetheless, and considered making a joke about her counting problems, but I couldn't think of a way to do it, without the possibility of looking like a jerk; so I kept mum, telling myself that if she wrote a cheque, that would go far enough beyond the pale to allow me to comment. But she didn't, so after she left I asked the cashier, a woman who looked like she could hold her own with anybody, if she ever refused to check someone out because they had too many items. "Sometimes." she said. "I don't have a bagger here, so it can get backed up real quick. But it can get ugly, and it takes time for someone to put their groceries back in the cart, so we usually let you slide."

Sounds like something that should be automated, so that the employees could avoid confrontation and mandate the normative behavior that makes everyone's life a little easier.

Swedish Hockey

In the early 1970s, my family would often attend the 10:30 Folk mass at the University of Windsor student chapel, which featured lots of righteous guitar strumming tunes in place of the more traditional hymns, which appear to be almost universally lacking a melody meant to be sung by a congregation. But that's another story.

After mass, my dad would often take me over to the student centre for a game of "Swedish Hockey," as he called it, on a coin-operated table. I loved it, and our Sunday matches soon became one of the highlights of the week.

On Christmas Day, 1975 (I'm guessing here), my dad revealed that down in his basement workshop he had built me my own table, all-wood construction, complete with players, goals, and even a scoreboard with red and blue pegs to place in holes numbered 0-9. The construction wasn't perfect (the ball frequently got stuck in the corners), but it was pretty good, and, over the years, I spent countless hours playing with family and friends. The game was still in working order, along with the beloved ping pong table, when I went off to college.

Shuffleboard was the game at St. Mike's, but in law school, in addition to pool, we sometimes played what everyone else called foosball. My informal polls revealed that although some people were aware of different names, No-one had ever heard of "Swedish Hockey." The Wikipedia entry for foosball says this:

The most common English names are table football, footzy, bar football and foosball, though table soccer is also used. Among French-style players it is known as baby-foot. The name foosball is a loose transliteration of the German word "Fußball", which itself means simply football.
In Germany and in Russia the game is most often called Kicker. In Italy the most used names are gitoni, biliardino and calcio balilla. In Hungary it is called csocsó. Through Brazilian regions, it has received several names, like totó, pebolim or fla-flu. In Spain the game is called futbolín. In Chile the game is known as tacataca. In Argentina, table football is known as metegol. In Guatemala, the game is called futillo. In Perú the game is known asfulbito de mesa or "futbolín". In other Latin American countries, it is known as canchitas or futbolito. In Bulgaria the game is called djaga.
In Turkey the game is called Langırt. In Portugal it is called matraquilhos. In the Netherlands the game is called tafelvoetbal. In Canada it is widely known as gitoni (where a gettone or token is required to play the game), foosball and baby-foot in Quebec. In South Africa it is called Ta-Ta box. In Poland it is called piłkarzyki which means "little football players".

I can also turn up no evidence on the Internet that anyone except my family has ever used this term. I think it's hilarious. But I will always think of foosball as Swedish Hockey. Thanks Dad.

Anyway, the BG has started playing what she calls foosball with her friends, at our local pool, and wondered aloud the other day--as kids tend to do when they are angling for something--about getting her own table. I gave her a stern lecture about the importance of a quality product, letting her know that a proper table would be expensive (and not telling her about the family history of bespoke construction).

The other night, Worldwide took me down the street to show me that one of our neighbours (who we don't really know) was throwing out a dismantled Swedish Hockey table, complete with a ziploc bag of screws taped to one end. We went to the door to see if the disposal was due to structural problems, overly competitive spouses or lack of use, but no-one was home, so the reason for abandoning the game may never be known.

But the table seemed to be in reasonable shape, so we carried it home, and I assembled it in the basement. It looks pretty good. I've ordered some replacement balls from Amazon, and I look forward to testing it out with the when the BG gets back from camp next month.

In the meantime, I feel righteous and awkward about the scavenging. It doesn't fit with my minimalist approach to possesions, but the price was certainly right, and I saved some landfill space, at least for a while. And the BG will be thrilled.

Woody Guthrie

With the Centennial of Woody Guthrie's birth in the news this weekend, and the sounds of a podcast of cover versions of his songs accompanying me home from the Y this morning, I got to thinking about the role of his music in my life.

My dad used to like to sing "This Land is Your Land" in the early seventies when we were exploring North America in our 1969 Volkswagen bus, but other than that I had only some vague knowledge that Guthrie was a folksinger of some kind. And, in all honesty I never really cared for the song, although in its defense I had never heard anyone other than my father sing it.

That changed in 1988, when I bought the Folkways: A Vision Shared album, based, as I recall, on a review in Rolling Stone, which we subscribed to at our house in law school as a substitute for actual work.  It's a very good album, and I particularly recommend the Springsteen cover of "I Ain't Got No Home," which really captures, for me, the duality of the romance and the hardship of the drifter. The romance of life on the road without money has diminished for me over time, but at 23, well, you know how it is.

Fast forward a dozen years. Lloyd Cole had just started his blog, and someone from his ever-more "selective" fans--betraying Lloyd's aging base--asked if he had ever thought of recording a children's album. Lloyd politely demurred, saying something about not having what it took to write children's songs--but also recommending Woody Guthrie's songbook from that genre.

Inspired by that--and sick of the Wiggles--I bought "Songs to Grow On." Although the album wasn't everything that I had hoped for (and certainly the OG did not cotton to the songs) we did get a kick out of Little Saka Sugar, and that was in heavy rotation for a short time around 2002.

I also, via Napster, discovered some of his other music, finding a number of songs that I enjoyed and a few that I didn't. But my most amazing discovery was a version of This Land is Your Land that had a verse I had never heard before:

There was a big, high wall there
They tried to stop me.
A sign was painted: said Private Property.
But on the back side, It didn't say nothing.
That side was made for you and me.

Those lines really struck a chord. They were so subversive. So unlike the sunshiney way the song had always been presented. It was incredible to me that I'd never heard them before.

Inspired, I picked up "Bound for Glory," which Worldwide had on her bookshelf, The cover of the autobiography crowed that the book was now a motion picture implausibly starring David Carradine as the dustbowl troubadour.

In my view, the book itself was not satisfying at all. It seemed to me that the author was trying to create a mythology around himself, and that the goal was more to create a brand, rather than to recount a life story. But the reviews on Amazon are generally positive, suggesting that maybe 80s me would have enjoyed it more. But 37 year-old me had no time for the romance of the road: I was too busy trying to put kids to bed and find weekend activities that included moon-bouncing. So, when browsing in a Baltimore bookstore while waiting for a train, I discovered the biography by Joe Klein, I thought it might be worth reading, in an attempt to get to the real story.

Which is exactly what the book delivers. It is a portrait of the artist, warts and all, including his communism, his poor treatment of women and the debilitating effects of the disease that took his life. Very honest, and well written, I highly recommend it. The book confirmed that the lost verse of This Land was real, and went on to explain that the song was a reaction to the celebratory patriotism of Irving Berlin's schmaltzy "God Bless America," including the lines:

One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there wondering
If God blessed America for me.

 I passed the book on to a friend in Salt Lake City on my way out to Olympia in 2003, and I haven't since thought much about Woody Guthrie until now.  I'm happy for the opportunity for reflection occasioned by the celebration of the centennial of his birth. Looking back, I seem to have spent more time with him than I would have expected, though almost every encounter was happenstance in some way. But I he keeps popping up in unexpected places, and I always seem to learn something new about the artist, and myself when it happens.

Here are two songs to cap this reflection. The first is the man himself singing Jolly Banker about a guy who is happy to lend you one as long as you pay back two, and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings covering his most famous song, and including the darker verses. Pretty good story.

WNF

Another review of Why Nations Fail at the Farnam Street Blog. Actually more of a summary of the Why, than a review. In short, it's all about the institutions. Here's the Top 10:

1. Lack of property rights (e.g., North Korea)
2. Forced Labor (e.g., Uzbekistan)
3. A tilted playing field (e.g., South Africa)
4. The big men get greedy (e.g., Egypt)
5. Elites block new technologies (e.g., Austria and Russia)
6. No law and order (e.g., Somalia)
7. A weak central government (e.g., Colombia) 
8. Bad public services (e.g., Peru)
9. Political exploitation (e.g, Bolivia)
10. Fighting over the spoils (e.g., Sierra Leone)

Of the books on my 2012 list, WNF is getting the most buzz. It's hard to think about the title of the year so early on, but it has to be in the conversation.


If you like the books I'm reading, I get a lot of recommendations from Farnam Street. The blog also links to a review of WNF by Nassim Taleb, as part of a list of recommendations, and I've previously cited another by Jared Diamond.

From the Taleb list, the Mean Genes book looks interesting. They have it at the library, and I'll pick it up after I finish my current pile which includes Food Matters, the Day Dreamer (thanks Pat) and Mrs. Dalloway

Air Unapparent

In a New York Times column last week, Richard Thaler had an article about using behavioral science to help governments design programs that people will use. He starts with a basic principle,

If you want to encourage some activity, make it easy.

This will not be a surprise to anyone, but the extent to which circumstances and regulations conspire to produce sub-optimal situations are is pervasive, and pernicious.

For example. The other day, Worldwide was preparing to take the BG and some friends to the neighbourhood pool. We have a couple of floating tubes that we bought in conjunction with a family trip to Myrtle Beach a couple of years ago.  The tubes came with an inflator, which is powered off of what used to be called the car's cigarette lighter.

She had found a device, which looked exactly the same, but it was, in reality, different in two ways: it was battery powered, and it had a connector designed to fit a camp bed purchased before we moved to Cairo in 2005. So it was useless because it lacked 4 D batteries, and because it wouldn't have fit the tube anyway.

Looking around the shed, Worldwide found a handheld bicycle pump with a handy needle attachment for basketballs. Not wanting to disappoint the excited children, she cheerfully began pumping away. After several minutes of action produced no discernible result, she sent the BG upstairs to see if I might have any ideas. I happened to remember the car attachment, and we managed to locate it in the shed, plug it into the car, and to blow up one of the tubes and to send the kids on their way.

Which brings me to today. I've been going to the gym six days a week during my sabbatical, and, as a result, have been feeling a little run down of late. This morning, as I read about the recovery of the American economy, the better angel of my nature convinced me that, even if I skipped the Y, I ought to do something. Remembering that I had planned to go to the library and the post office today, I decided to ride my bike along the Bolin Creek trail, which essentially begins near our house, and ends at the post office. I loaded up my backpack with Gail Collins' William Henry Harrison biography and the collected writings of Hunter S. Thompson in Rolling Stone, and headed to the shed, where I found the tires of my mountain bike soft, after a couple of months of inactivity.

No problem. Faced with similar situations many times in the past, I purchased, several years ago, an air compressor with a rechargeable battery. Because the battery no longer holds a charge for more than a day or two (and I don't need to use it more than once a month at most), I keep the unit plugged in near the grade door in the basement. This, however, may have been why the unit was dead when I tried to use it this morning. I suspect that a power surge from one of the many thunderstorms this month (we lost power at least twice) may have fried the unit. But whatever the reason, it didn't work.

Luckily, we had the bicycle pump. It might not work on a float tube, but surely it was just the thing for a ... bicycle, right? Not exactly. Whether it be poor design, user error or sabotage, I could not get the pump to do its job, and even when I put it under my nose, it didn't seem to be producing much, if any air, which is really the key thing I usually look for in an air pump. So after twenty minutes of futility, I decided to coast down the hill on my soft tires to our local gas station, where, for four quarters, I can use an industrial strength machine to do the job. In fact, because someone had left a little time on the pump, I didn't even need the silver; so the story has a happy ending, I guess, and it did get me a blog post.

But the larger point is this. One of the ways that governments can make our lives easier and better is through the promulgation of standards. This is one of the main reasons for the success of the Internet are the rules for domain names, the ubiquity of html and, to a lesser extent, the utility of USB chargers. Maybe there is a good reason why float tubes no longer have the same valves as bike tires, and why camp beds are different than float tubes. But I don't know what it is, and I have had a hard time on two different occasions trying to make remarkably similar devices work with equipment that purports to get the job done. I know that I could be more vigilant in making sure that I use surge protectors and purchase compatible products, but I also think that the value of sacrificing some choice for the sake of a more interconnected ecosystem is underappreciated, and that government can play a role in its improvement. The market helps, as well, of course (as I write this on my Google account using a Microsoft operating system and post it on the Internet) but monopolies can be problematic too, and sometimes require intervention to protect the consumer. Sometimes, things are not as easy as they ought to be.

U-Nam

Took the BG to airport this morning for her trip up to Canada as an "unaccompanied minor," or, as it's known in the trade, a U-NAM. Both Gs have traveled this way a couple of times, and their approach to the idea of independent travel could not be more different.

The first time the OG traveled by herself, she was under the impression that I would just drop her off at the airport and return home, leaving her to negotiate tickets, security and boarding independently. Her indignance increased at each step, as she learned that I had to check her in, escort her through security and stay with her at the gate until she boarded, and the plane was in the air. Do they not know what "unaccompanied" means?

The BG, on the other hand, wanted my attention right until the very end, and was demonstrably nervous about having to change planes in DC. We enjoyed a couple of Everything bagels with cream cheese and got to the gate, just as the notice of boarding was delivered. Given the choice of boarding first or last, the BG looked to me for guidance. I suggested getting on first, to allow her time to get settled, open her gum and retrieve her dog-eared copy of Thirteen, before stowing her new tie-dye coloured backpack, which J-14 reports is totally "in" this year.

Which she did, with the help of a couple of solicitous flight attendants, who quickly allayed her concerns about the adventure, and the chances of actually being unaccompanied at any given time.

Now on to time with the GPs, Dreams in Motion, and a part in Treasure Island, which she hopes, will be a pirate. Based on my knowledge of the book, which I read last year, that's not a bad bet.

She's Got a Chicken to Ride

Just learned, via Today's NYT, that a misheard music lyric is properly identified as a "mondegreen." Not to be confused with an "eggcorn," which, for all intensive purposes, is something altogether different. 'Scuse me, while I kiss this guy.

Cupcake Central

With the Gs back home for a week between camps, we've settled on a couple of shows in the evening--both Food Network Programs. BG suggested Iron Chef, but we couldn't find it on this week, so we've settled into Chopped and Cupcake Wars, two not dissimilar cooking competitions with exacting judges,

One of the things that troubles the BG is that every dish on America's Test Kitchen is a success; they never show you what didn't work. Well Chopped is the remedy for that. 4 chefs prepare, in turn, an appetizer, entree and dessert, within a short time limit, using a number of carefully chosen mystery ingredients. Here's your basket--apple pie, fried chicken, artichokes, american cheese. You've got 30 minutes to make a delicious appetizer. Go! At first it was a little intense for the OG, who does not like to watch people fail (the judges mince no words), but she's come around.

The other show uses a similar format, but seems to focus exclusively on cupcakes, which appear to be the pesto of the new millenium. There is a fancy cupcake store on Franklin Street; a bus that visited Raleigh last summer; and the BG and I talked at length the other day with a woman running a cart at the local mall. Moreover, the BG has been, er, devouring, the Cupcake Diaries this summer, a series of stories featuring a set of friends who have adventures and bake.

So we decided to try our hand at it today. The BG had found this recipe for Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes on her own (from the good people at Jif--the choice of discerning parents in my day (mine preferred the sludge from the local food co-op). We used blueberry jam, instead of the recommended strawberry, and chose to top ours with Reese's Pieces, coconut and sprinkles. I would have skipped the coconut, but it's hard for a ten year-old to resist one more topping. We also layered the peanut butter and frosting, as our icing was in an aerosol can of sorts.Still the results were pretty tasty, and the trip to the supermarket, along with the baking, occupied a good portion of the morning and afternoon today.

• CUPCAKES
• 1 package White Premium Cake Mix
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/3 cup  Vegetable Oil
• 3 large eggs
• 1 (12 oz.) jar Strawberry Jam, divided
• 
  
• FROSTING
• 1 container  Vanilla Flavored Frosting
• 1/2 cup  Creamy Peanut Butter
• 3 tablespoons chopped salted peanuts, for garnish

1. HEAT oven to 350°F. Line 24 muffin cups with paper baking cups.
2. BEAT cake mix, water, oil and eggs in large bowl. Blend with electric mixer until moistened. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Fill baking cups 1/3 full. Place 1/2 cup jam into corner of resealable plastic bag. Cut small corner off bag. Make a swirl of jam over batter. Cover with remaining batter filling cups 2/3 full.
3. BAKE 18 to 22 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cupcakes in pans on wire racks 5 minutes. Remove from pans. Cool completely on wire racks.
4. COMBINE frosting and peanut butter. Place frosting in decorator bag fitted with a decorator tip (4B), if desired, or frost cupcake, leaving center area for jam. Starting at outside edge, work towards center of cupcake leaving a well in the center for jam. Place remaining 1/2 cup jam into corner of resealable plastic bag. Cut small corner off bag. Fill center of cupcake with jam and garnish with sprinkle of chopped peanuts.

OG Birthday tribute

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDBTmmKnuag

Tech savvy daughter gave me this slideshow yesterday to celebrate #47, complete with Lloyd Cole soundtrack. Some great pictures of the Gs, and one of me in high school!

Dinner Assembly

If you are hosting the Gs this summer, as several relatives are, you will undoubtedly wonder what to feed them, as one is a strict vegetarian, and the other likes meat, rice and plain pasta. It's not easy, believe me, but one heuristic that helps is the concept of dinner table assembly. If everything arrives independently--pasta, sauce, meat, vegetable, it allows each diner to put exactly what s/he likes on her plate. This also works with salads, as it is easy to turn a bowl of lettuce and a plate of chopped vegetables with choice of dressing into a host of combinations, ranging all the way from a couple of carrot sticks to a spring salad with roasted almonds and crumbled blue cheese.

For example, last night I served some leftover grilled pork tenderloin, with peanut noodles and salad. The BG is a fan of the dish--a simpler version of the one in my 1997 Joy of Cooking--and would usually eat just the pasta with a side salad, while the OG would eat her pasta plain, with a couple of pieces of meat, a cherry tomato, and maybe a carrot stick, if prodded; and the adults can go all in. Plus, served cold, the peanut noodles make a great lunch, as my stomach would be happy to attest today.

We use this approach quite often with pasta, as well as burritos, and even stir fries, where plain meat on the side can be added at the table, or eaten independently, as you prefer.

I'm certain that this approach is better than the traditional eat-it-or-starve position, although I can see the advantages of the latter, both immediately, and in the long term.

Peanut Noodles

Blend in a food processor 2 cups peanut butter (chunky is better), 1/2 cup, white vinegar, 1/3 cup soy sauce, 2 cloves of garlic, minced, 1 tsp. chili paste, 3 tbs sugar, 2 tsp salt. Stir in 1/2 cup sesame oil, 1 cup freshly brewed black tea. Serve with pasta.

** If I'm making this for myself, I'll double the chili paste. At home, I make sure the Sriracha is on the table. If you are pressed for time or ingredients, you can substitute Sriracha for the chili paste and garlic.

Here Comes the Hot stepper.

I am usually the first one downstairs in the morning, especially during the school year, when I have to make lunches and come up with the Song of the Day. The BG is usually next, followed by the OG and Worldwide.

For some long forgotten reason, when I hear one of the Gs coming down the stairs, I'll sometimes launch into "Here Comes the Hot Stepper, a minor hit for someone named Ini Kamoze in the early nineties. I don't think either of them has actually hears the song, but they both know to fire back "word 'em up. I'm the lyrical gangster" at the right time, and it was especially funny to hear it coming out of a four year-old back in 2005.

Yesterday, the BG and I were at the mall looking for a new backpack for school. She had decided that she might want to spend her NBA Pool winnings on a game called Just Dance, Summer  Party, which she had enjoyed on a friend's Kinect. We found a used copy at Gamestop for $20, and she happily brought it home in her new tie-dyed blue and green backpack.

The disc has, among other more forgettable tunes, a simplified version of the aforementioned song, and when I heard the pounding bass, I just knew that I had heard it someplace else. To answer these types of questions, I love whosampled.com, which does a really nice job of keeping track of what samples artists use, as well as where they're songs have been sampled. I discovered that the familiar beat was from Heartbeat, a 1981 song from Taana Gardner that I had put on a Valentine's day playlist for the OG.

That was fun. Here is the playlist:


Don't Go Breaking My Heart, Elton John & Kiki Dee
Groove Is In the Heart, Deee-Lite
Piece of My Heart, Erma Franklin
Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken? Lloyd Cole & The Commotions
What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted, Jimmy Ruffin
Heartbeat (Party Mix), Taana Gardner
Heart Of Glass, Blondie
Hungry Heart, Bruce Springsteen
Heart Like Mine, Blue Rodeo
Queen Of Hearts, Juice Newton
This Old Heart Of Mine (Is Weak For You), The Isley Brothers
Take My Heart Away, Johnny Clegg & Savuka
Another Nail In My Heart, Squeeze
There's A Song in My Heart, The Commodores
Feel the New Heartbeat, The Treacherous Three
Open Your Heart, Madonna

Houseguests

With Worldwide and the Gs due back this afternoon, I did something that I have dreaded doing all week. At times there has been a staccato series of chirps emanating from the fireplace. At first I thought it was a mouse, or perhaps a bird had gotten down the chimney, an occurrence which had bedeviled Worldwide awhile ago.

The morning after I first heard the noises, I carefully opened the fireplace doors. I saw nothing, and confirmed that the flue was closed, eliminating the bird in the house problem; so, like a responsible homeowner, I forgot about it. But at various times throughout the week, I could hear the chirps, so I knew there was something in the chimney, and that I couldn’t tell Worldwide or the Gs that I hadn’t noticed it all week, which is what 12 year-old me would have done.

So yesterday, I gave myself up to the Internet. Try Googling “chirping in my chimmey” to stoke your imagination. Cicadas? Raccoons? Mice? Bats?

But the most likely culprit was the chimney swift, a bird described thusly by Wikipedia:

In flight, this bird looks like a flying cigar with long slender curved wings. The plumage is a sooty grey-brown; the throat, breast, underwings and rump are paler. ...The breeding season of Chimney Swifts is from May through July. Their breeding habitat is near towns and cities across eastern North America. Originally, these birds nested in large hollow trees, but now they mainly nest in man-made structures such as large open chimneys. The nest is made of twigs glued together with saliva and placed in a shaded location. They will lay three to seven white eggs, which the female will cover at night. The incubation period is 19-20 days, and the fledglings leave the nest after a month. Chimney swifts can nest more than once in a season.

My Peterson’s guide concurred, describing the sound as “Loud, rapid, ticking or chippering notes.”


This morning, I went up to the roof to investigate. I confirmed that we did not have a chimney screen, which is the recommended defense against the birds--who are reported to return to favourite nesting spots after their winter in Peru--but I couldn’t see anything down the chimney.

So I sat and watched for a few minutes. Sure enough, two creatures flew into the chimney, a couple of minutes apart, followed by a burst of chirps. They looked a lot like flying cigars. Case closed, in my view. I can’t say with 100% certainty that they weren’t bats, but I’m confident enough.

But what to do now? My decision is to live with the birds, savouring the chirps as the celebration of the death of the many insects that make up the birds’ diet; and to install a chimney cap in the Fall, after the visitors have flown the nest for warmer climes. So no action immediately required, which is pretty much how I roll.

Market Forces

Loyal readers (i.e. Worldwide and G-Lo) will remember that Daniel Kahnemann’s Thinking Fast and Slow was my book of the year for 2011. The key theme in the book is that, due to the effort required to reason through a problem, the brain looks for shortcuts, or heuristics, to enable quick decision making, and that we often use this technique unconsciously, sometimes to our detriment. The book also mentions a well known experiment, called the Dictator Game, where someone is given a sum of money--say $10--and told that s/he must make an offer to share with another person. If the offer is accepted, both parties get to keep their share; if it is refused, no-one does.

Classic economic logic predicts that the offeree should accept any offer, because it yields them something for nothing. But experiments have shown that people will reject offers that they consider unfair: if you give me $1, I will take it, but if you offer to split your $10, 9 for you, 1 for me, I will refuse. The math of the situation is identical, and yet, there is something in our brain that uses our own concept of “fairness” to override acting rationally. This is one of the basic tenets of behavioural economics, for which Kahnemann won a Nobel prize.

Which brings me to the grocery store. Like most people, I have a loyalty card for Harris Teeter, our local supermarket. This entitles me to valuable discounts in return for them knowing everything about what we eat and drink at home. A little Kafkaesque, but, in my view a fair trade, particularly since the pricing structure in the store dramatically favours the VIC (Very Important Customer) card holder.

They have also trained the cashiers to automatically conclude every purchase with a “You saved $xx” and I applaud them for the success of their implementation; it is a rare day when someone fails to acknowledge my excellent shopping habits.

But lurking below the surface is a monstrous deception; an elaborate con-game in which the supermarket moguls try to separate us from our cash using the latest data from behavioural economics.

Here are two of the heuristics that I apply to get in and out of the grocery store in a hurry.

1. Something discounted is a better deal
2. Larger quantities are cheaper on a per unit basis

The truth is much different. For instance, Worldwide and the Gs love the store’s blueberry muffins (have you noticed that most stores have the bakery and deli alongside the produce now? That is because it creates an impression of freshness, which leads us to think of blueberry muffins topped with a sugary glaze as healthy, which they are not). The muffins today were “on sale" for $3.47 for a 4 pack, marked down from the regular price of $4.99. This lowers the unit cost to about $0.87/muffin--not as expensive as the $3 it might cost you at Starbucks, but five times more than the banana across the aisle. But since the price is 30% lower...

Except that it isn’t. The muffins are always priced at $3.47. In two years of buying them weekly I have never seen them at any other price. The only change is that, about 4 months ago, someone decided that the regular price should be $4.99, instead of $3.99, which had been the asking price for most of last year. So my local grocer just saved me an extra $1/week. Wow, thanks. I can just see the newly minted MBA at next week’s staff meeting making a pitch to use the Starbuck’s price as the benchmark. Think of the savings for the hoi polloi!

The second heuristic--that larger packages are cheaper--is equally fiendish, because it is true in some cases, but not all, and there doesn’t seem to be any pattern in the data. For instance, although Worldwide consumes enough Half and Half with her morning coffee to warrant the purchase of the half gallon carton, the quart is always $0.30 less per quart. But this does not hold true for the milk. And to make it worse, when I was comparing two boxes of soft pretzels (a staple in the OG’s school lunches) the 25-unit box gave me a per pretzel unit cost in easy to read 6 point font, while the 6-unit box was per ounce. What’s the deal? Are the preztels in each box the same size? Are the ingredients different? Should I ask the manager?

I threw up my hands and walked away; which is also an available heuristic. But we gotta eat something. Whole Foods doesn’t have loyalty cards; but their prices are higher, although their produce is better, and their milk is cheaper. My head hurts.