libertango | Entries tagged with class

The New York Times has a very interesting infographic: It takes the top 100 Netflix rentals, tells you their titles, and then maps them by zip code in cities like NY (natch), Boston, Seattle, Minneapolis, Atlanta, etc. In addition, hovering your mouse pointer tells you the top 10 in any given zip code, and also where the current title mapped ranks among the top 50 for the zip code.

Not quite Tufte-level info density, but very high. Also interesting for patterns -- very popular movies are popular everywhere, but in the middle things very much separate by neighborhood. Interesting to see, for example, that frat-comedy The House Bunny plays very well in the UW zip code. Something of a thumbs-up from the portrayed subjects. But there are also titles that play in downtowns and not in the 'burbs, and vice versa.

EDITED TO ADD: Three movies I'd suggest looking at the patterns for to see large contrasts are Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Milk, and the two titles by Tyler Perry. The comments page at the NYT had a great line: "It'd be interesting to see the correlation between areas where Mall Cop coincides with Palin supporters."

Another observation from the NYT comments -- Some people find it very difficult to imagine that just because they behave a certain way for a certain reason, others (including possibly a majority) might do different things for different reasons. That is, the idea of a theory of mind being something widespread is probably a very idealistic concept. (It would also go a long way in explaining why the Golden Rule doesn't work as well as it might.)

Usage tip: The maps can be clicked and dragged to show a somewhat larger area than appears at first glance. So for LA, one can see the San Fernando Valley and most of Orange County, for instance.

Over at the Freakonomics blog at the New York Times, they have a post with an odd sensibility: "Is Locavorism for Rich People Only?"

My just-posted comment:

*^*^*

"(I)f there’s one thing you do not see at the farmers’ market, it’s socio-economic diversity."

Speak for yourself, James.

I realize it's anecdotal, and I realize it's a single data point. But my observation at my local farmers' market (in Kent, WA) is there is indeed socio-economic diversity. If anything, I'd say the market appeals to both rich and poor -- but it's the McDonalds/Walmart/solidly middle class who don't turn up. (This is somewhat reminiscent of the old Punch cartoon of a movie with a poster about being funny "for young and old," and we see grandfather and grandson laughing, with a befuddled parent.)

I've been ascribing this to the middles' preference for processed "convenience" foods, precisely because they may perceive fresh foods as a sign of recent immigration (a la Asian grocery stores), or poverty. Like you, though, I have no empirical data to support the idea.

For lexicon purposes:

"Jeez Oh." -- Billy Connolly

Said with as close to a Glaswegian accent as one can muster. An expression of astonishment.

*^*^*

In this instance, what prompts that is reading this backgrounder on Sarah Palin from the New York Times.

Ms. Palin's maiden name was Heath.

They quote her older sister, Heather Bruce.

Which means that sister's birth name was, god help us, Heather Heath.

{blink}

Jeez Oh.

David Frum has an interesting piece in the New York Times. Here's the opening, but it's worth reading the whole thing, to see him flesh it out:

*^*^*

I LIVE IN WASHINGTON, in a neighborhood that is home to lawyers, political consultants, television personalities and the chief executive of the TIAA-CREF pension fund. Not exactly an abode of the superrich, but the kind of neighborhood where almost nobody does her own yardwork or vacuums his own floor. Children’s birthday parties feature rented moon bounces or hired magicians. The local grocery stores offer elegant precooked dinners of salmon, duck and artichoke ravioli.

Four miles to the southeast there stretches a different Washington. More than one-third of the people live in poverty. Close to half the young children are overweight. Fewer than half the adults work. The rate of violent crime is more than 10 times that of the leafy streets of my neighborhood.

Measured by money income, Washington qualifies as one the most unequal cities in the United States. Yet these two very different halves of a single city do share at least one thing. They vote the same way: Democratic. And in this, we are not alone. As a general rule, the more unequal a place is, the more Democratic; the more equal, the more Republican. The gap between rich and poor in Washington is nearly twice as great as in strongly Republican Charlotte, N.C.; and more than twice as great as in Republican-leaning Phoenix, Fort Worth, Indianapolis and Anaheim.

My fellow conservatives and Republicans have tended not to worry very much about the widening of income inequalities. As long as there exists equality of opportunity — as long as everybody’s income is rising — who cares if some people get rich faster than others? Societies that try too hard to enforce equality deny important freedoms and inhibit wealth-creating enterprise. Individuals who worry overmuch about inequality can succumb to life-distorting envy and resentment.

All true! But something else is true, too: As America becomes more unequal, it also becomes less Republican. The trends we have dismissed are ending by devouring us."

In a goose/gander way...

This is based on the original paper (NB: MS Word .DOC format), by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Indiana State University. So the questions are slightly different from what's been floating on LJ.

Note that this was originally a college class exercise, where if one of the questions below applied to you, you were to take a step forward, while being able to see your classmates.

Bold are ones that apply to me. Italics are ones that don't. Regular is my commentary.

( Cut for length and eccentric formatting... )

("Privilege" is in scare quotes here because, in my observation, the word isn't used except by people who already have it. Not unlike one who rails against the bourgeoisie is almost always a bourgeois.)

A very odd thing about this, right off the top: "The list is based on an exercise developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University." Um, no, in fact. They're from Indiana State. Here's Mr. Barratt's page on "Social Class on Campus". Here's Barratt's faculty page. Here's Barratt's personal page.

The switch from Indiana to Illinois appears to have occurred very early on in the meme process. If you search by the cited researchers plus "Illinois," you get 819 hits. Do it with "Indiana" (the accurate version), and you get only 9. I suspect this is not unlike the time Mary Schmich's advice to, "Wear sunscreen," got mysteriously attributed to Kurt Vonnegut.

This is the original paper with the exercise, which appears to be meant to be done in a live class, not filled out as a questionnaire. (Note: MS WORD .DOC format, which Barratt seems to prefer throughout his pages.) Questions have been edited out, and a few have been re-worded, on their way to LJ.

In someone else's post of the meme (I won't point to it, since it's Friends Only), I had some more notes:

( To spare you further ramblings of a wordy bastard... )

See generally: Paul Fussell, Class; Lewis Lapham, Money and Class in America; Nelson Aldrich, Old Money.

So.

So, while I was in LA for my legal sojourn, I tried to change the address to as many recurring mailed items as possible, to our new PO box in Bellevue. You know, bills, magazines, etc.

Foreign Affairs was kind of far down my list. So I already had a patter ready to go...

"Hello, Foreign Affairs, may I help you?"

"Yes... I'd like to request a change of address, please."

"Yes, sir, of course. Is this a permanent, or a seasonal change of address?"

{beat}

A... seasonal... change of address? Oh, yeah, sure, I'm going to summer in the Hamptons, along with Rather and Kissinger and Rose, you schmuck, whaddaya think?

"Umm... Permanent, I think."

*^*^*

Still, it must be said that being a subscriber to the magazine with probably the most haute snoote list in Amurrica has its bennies. I keep getting offers from other magazines to subscribe at "Professional Rates". I have no idea what profession Time and the New Yorker think I practice that make $.50/issue a good idea to them... But I'm willing to take them up on it. (For the New Yorker, at least. Time just showed up the other day, and being unemployed I'm trying to manage cash flow...)

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Hal O'Brien

Slipping on the fatal floor.

Entries tagged with class

Netflix vs. the map

Well. That's different.

Jeez Oh

The Rise of Inequality Is Harming the Republicans

Privilege meme -- answers

"Privilege" meme -- some notes

Everything you need to know about Foreign Affairs magazine

Profile

March 2022

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags