Wisdom from the 42nd Page

Cop in the Hood

On the forty-second page of “Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore's Eastern District” author Peter Moskos wrote (emphasis added):

which abounds in the Eastern District. The word "dirty" is used to describe the figurative filth of a drug addit. It is, in the drug-related sense, the opposite of being clean. Addicts also refer to "getting cleaned up," as in "I've been clean for one week." Still, drug users and the police use the idea of dirty in slightly different ways. Addicts consider themselves dirty or clean depending on whether or not they have drugs on them. If stopped by police, addicts hustling to get money for drugs may protest that they are not dirty. Police refer to anybody who is or will be involved with drugs or anything drug-related as dirty.

The damage from hardcore addiction is self-evident, even to an only slightly trained eye. Many addicts ahve blemished and damaged skin, an awkward gait, missing teeth, a thin physique, and, while high on heroin, a gravity-defying ability to lean and sway without falling down. I often visited a local Laundromat owner sho sits behind Plexiglas and, for fear of robery, opened at 7 AM and closed at 2 PM. He described a heroin addict who did small odd jobs for him: "Frank was gone for thirteen months. Locked up. When he came back, things were different but then [simulates repeated injection with his finger into his arm]... He used to do good work. Plumbing, carpentry, electrical. He was making $18 an hour doing, what's it called? With brick. Laying bricks. And now he can't even clean windows." The owner kindly continued to offer Frank odd jobs until the addict burglarized the store for $300 in quarters. In the following days, the bar across the street was inundated with people using change for their liquor purchases.

"How could anyone start taking drugs here?" one police officer wondered. "All you go to do is look around to see

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(Princeton University Press, January 2008. Hardcover, 245 pages. ISBN: 0691140081; EAN: 9780691140087.)

The Myth of the Rational Voter

On the forty-second page of “The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies” author Bryan Caplan wrote (most emphasis added):

As Scott saw the future, the inexorable increase in productivity, far outstripping opportunities for employment or investment, must mean permanent and growing unemployment and permanent and growing debt, until capitalism collapsed under the double load.⁷⁴

Economists' love of qualification is notorious, but most doubt that the protechnology position needs to be qualified. Technology often creates new jobs; without the computer, there would be no jobs in computer programming or software development. But the fundamental defense of labor-saving technology is that employing more workers than you need wastes valuable labor. If you pay a worker to twiddle his thumbs, you could have paid him to do something socially useful instead.

Economists add that market forces readily convert this potential social benefit into an actual one. After technology throws people out of work, they have an incentive to find a new use for their talents. Cox and Alm aptly describe this process as "churn": "Through relentless turmoil, the economy re-creates itself, shifting labor resources to where they're needed, replacing old jobs with new ones."⁷⁵ They illustrate this process with history's most striking example: The drastic decline in argicultural employment:

In 1800, it took nearly 95 of every 100 Americans to feed the country. In 1900, it took 40. Today, it takes just 3. ... The workers no longer needed on farms have been put to use providing new homes, furniture, clothing, computers, pharmaceuticals, appliances, medical assistance, movies, financial advice, video games, gourmet meals, and an almost dizzying array of other goods and services. ... What we have in place of long hours in the fields is the wealth of good and services that come from allowing the churn to work, wherever and whenever it might occur.⁷⁶

These arguments sound harsh. That is part of the reason why they are so unpopular: people would rather feel compassionately than think logically. Many economists advocate government assistance to cushion displaced workers' transition, and retain public support for a dynamic economy. Alan Blinder recommends extending unemployment insurance, retraining, and relocation subsidies.⁷⁷ Other economists disagree. But almost all economists grant that stopping transitions has a grave cost.

Exasperating as the Luddite mentality is, countries rarely move beyond rhetoric and turn back the clock of technology. But you cannot say the same about another controvery infused with make-work bias: hostility to downsizing. What could possibly be good about downsiz[ing].

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(Princeton University Press, April 2007. Hardcover, 276 pages. ISBN: 0691129428; EAN: 9780691129426.)

The Hidden Dimension

On the forty-second page of “The Hidden Dimension” anthropologist Edward T. Hall wrote (emphasis added):

This classification can be broken down even further. The skin, for example, is the chief organ of touch and is also sensitive to heat gain and loss; both radiant and conducted heat are detected by the skin. Hence, strictly speaking, the skin is both an immediate and a distance receptor.

There is a general relationship between the evolutionary age of the receptor system and the amount and quality of information it conveys to the central nervous system. The tactile, or touch, systems are as old as life itself; indeed, the ability to respond to stimuli is one of the basic criteria of life. Sight was the last and most specialized sense to be developed in man. Vision became more important and olfaction less essential when man's ancestors left the ground and took to the trees, as I mentioned in the last chapter. Stereoscopic vision is essential in arboreal life. Without it, jumping from branch to branch becomes very precarious.

Visual and Auditory Space

The amount of information gathered by the eyes as contrasted with the ears has not been precisely calculated. Such a calculation not only involves a translation process, but scientists have been handicapped by lack of knowledge of what to count. A general notion, however, of the relative complexities of the two systems can be obtained by comparing the size of the nerves connecting the eyes and the ears to the centers of the brain. Since the optic nerve contains roughly eighteen times as many neurons as the cochlear nerve, we assume it transmits at least that much more information. Actually, in normally alert subjects, it is probable that the eyes may be as much as a thousand times as effective as the ears in sweeping up information.

The area that the unaided ear can effectively cover in the course of daily living is quite limited. Up to twenty feet the ear is very efficient. At about one hundred feet, one-way vocal communication is possible, at somewhat slower rate than at conversational distances, while two-way conversation is very considerably altered. Beyond this distance, the auditory cues with which man works begin to break down rapidly.

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(Anchor Books, May 1975. Paperback, 240 pages. ISBN: 0385084765; EAN: 9780385084765.)

Promises I Can Keep

On the forty-second page of “Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage” authors Kathryn Edin & Maria Kefalas wrote (emphasis added):

[de]cency ought to be home taking care of herself, not "ripping and running the streets."

Young men are not subject to the physical changes that announce to the world they're about to become fathers. Strangers do not look askance at them if they continue to party or hang with the boys on the corner. They get no special attention because of their "condition," nor are they the guests of honor at the baby shower. Only their girlfriends and sometimes their kin chide them to grow up, get serious, and begin taking care of their responsibilities. Their male peers, on the other hand, may well be encouraging them to celebrate their freedom while they can.¹

Pregnancy and birth test the mettle of the soon-to-be mother and father. Some rise to the occasion; others do not. The advent of pregnancy quickly divides the committed from the fickle, but over the course of nine months, even men who show initial devotion may falter.² Thus, few couples emerge from this turbulent period unscathed. Yet the magic moment of childbirth often has at least momentary powers to heal these fractured relationships. Optimism and hope may return, and couples may again make promises to one another that they fervently hope they can keep.

"WELL, I GUESS IT'S THE POPE'S, RIGHT?"

Despite the dreams of shared children that young couples so often indule in before conception, men are as likely to respond with shock and trepidation—or even outrage and denial—as with pleasure. Like Mahkiya's boyfriend Mike, some immediately attempt to deny the child is theirs and accuse their mystified girlfriends of being "cheaters" or "whores." Others try to force the expectant mother to have an abortion, threatening to break up with her and have nothing to do with the child unless she compiles. Still others simply abandon their pregnant girlfriends when they hear the news.

These response provoke both heartbreak and anger, and even sometimes a lust for revenge in the would-be-mother. A twenty-seven year-old Puerto Rican mother of three named Millie, whose story continues

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(University of California Press, March 2005. Hardcover, 300 pages. ISBN: 0520241134; EAN: 9780520241138.)

Off the Books

On the forty-second page of “Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor” sociologist Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh wrote (emphasis added):

congregation of people who reside in their home, and moving outward, creating ties in the home, on the block, and through the neighborhood.³ They also follow personal networks by creating alliances with trusted persons in the home and with more distant friends, kin, associates, gang members, social and political allies, and so on.

In the household the women see potential sources of support. The people coming in and out of their home are other poor individuals—whether friends or kin—who are likely also to be oriented toward the underground as a venue for work, goods, and services. All such persons could help the household make ends meet. Indeed, friends, grandchildren, ex-lovers, and such are not necessarily burdens, but people to whom these women may turn someday as times get tough and as aging knocks at their own door. Imagining the future translates into envisioning stability in and around their homes. And so understanding the underground economy from the perspective of these women must involve looking at the ways they stabilize their households.

It would be incorrect to suggest that men do not play an active role in domestic affairs.⁴ Several structural factors shape how men participate in the households on Eunice's block. It is well known that poor families' reliance on public subsidies has placed many restrictions on the types of household arrangements that the poor may form.⁵ To remain eligible for many government subsidies, parents and guardians adhere to restrictions that limit the residence of other income earners in the household. Historically, in poor households, black and white, women have disproportionately assumed the publicly recognized role of primary guardian.⁶ They tend to be the recipients of public welfare, including nutritional subsidies, medical care, and housing assistance, on behalf of their children. As they manage the receipt of these subsidies,

More information about “Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor” (and the book itself) is available from:

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(Harvard University Press, October 2006. Hardcover, 448 pages. ISBN: 0674023552; EAN: 9780674023550.)