Worth Reading for January 2006

1/31 Well worth browsing: Quent Cordair Fine Art has an eclectic collection of artists with works available. And Donald Pittenger has the third of an ongoing series on peripheral artists.

1/30 Frederick Douglass: “Everybody has asked the question . . . ‘What shall we do with the Negro?’ I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature’s plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!” Cato’s Tom Palmer has a post about Frederick Douglass’s classical liberal credentials. And more recently:
Morgan Freeman is a wise man.

1/29 Tim Swanson wonders: Will the traditional college survive distance-learning, podcasting, and other new delivery systems? And given that about 60% of college graduates are now women, Michael Blowhard asks whether we have a genuine Boy Crisis.

1/28 Excellent business ethics in action: BB&T Bank has announced that it will not loan money to developers who use the government to acquire property by eminent domain. A welcome step toward eliminating compulsion from the marketplace. (Via Dynamist.) And Russell Roberts has some sharp words for a sloppy economic reporter.

1/27 Today is Mozart’s 250th birthday. Terry Teachout places Mozart in a class apart. Tyler Cowen looks at the economics of Mozart. And here’s an update on the testing of Mozart’s skull.

1/26 Globalization and dramatically shifting shares of global GDP. And check out the London-based Globalisation Institute. You have to admire an institute whose number one hero is Richard Cobden.

1/25 Doug Brown reviews Geoffrey Stone’s Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism. (Thanks to Virginia for the link.)

1/24 Ed Driscoll reflects on Hollywood politics, new movie-making technologies, and the “prosumer” movement. And at 43 Folders, information about a program that translates text feeds into podcasts.

1/23 A series of darkly hilarious de-motivational posters. (Thanks to Joe for the link.) Here is my favorite: Sacrifice.

1/21 The American Council of Trustees and Alumni: fixing the lack of intellectual diversity on college campuses (PDF format). And Orin Kerr clarifies the legal status of free speech and annoying emails.

1/20 What are science’s ten most beautiful experiments? Check out the PillCam—a pill-sized camera that “takes about 2,600 color pictures at a rate of 14 per second” as it passes through a patient’s digestive system. And scientists have found molecules that are the precursors to life on a planet only 375 light-years from Earth. (Thanks to Karen for the link.)

1/19 Philosopher Dennis Dutton connects aesthetics and evolutionary psychology. Which raises the question: What to make of these aesthetically-challenged beasts?

1/18 At Catallarchy, Bill Cholenski starts a discussion: What’s wrong with child labor? And what about fideism in children’s books? Tom Bell has a question for those who urge children to believe blindly.

1/17 Were American colonists on average 2.6 inches taller than their British contemporaries? Did they live on average 17 years longer? Friedrich has data on nutrition and life expectancy in the American colonies.

1/16 The state of the debate: To what extent
is intelligence innate or acquired? And are you obsessed with email on the job? Slow Leadership explains how that
lowers your IQ and productivity.

1/14 The Radical Loser: Hans Magnus Enzensberger explores dark psychological territory—and its political implications for understanding terrorists and other killers. (Thanks to Bob H. for the link.)

1/13 Tyler Cowen reflects on an essay by Gregory Clark and asks When did the Industrial Revolution really begin? Possibly a century earlier than the usual date of 1750?

1/12 Lynne Kiesling is thinking about Google Print, Amazon’s ‘Search Inside’ and the future of book selling. And Arnold Kling argues that The Undercover Economist is what an economics textbook should look like.

1/11 Fruits of the Enlightenment: tables showing dramatically rising life expectancies in the 20th century. And here is a link to Heritage’s recently released Index of Economic Freedom, showing improvement around the world.

1/9 Fifty great inventions at Popular Mechanics. And here is the world’s longest running science experiment.

1/5 How to make wealth: Paul Graham explains. (Thanks to Joe for the link.) And at the other end of the wealth spectrum, just how bad are things in North Korea? (Via Catallarchy.)

1/4 Trouble for free speech in Europe: two writers under government pressure. And in Iran Western music has been banned. And here is the FIRE’s college speech code of the month.

1/3 Roger Donway has been appointed Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Energy Research. Here is the announcement and a partial list of his relevant publications.

1/2 Job seeking advice to start the year off right:
Responses in an Interview for a Nanny Position That Will Almost Certainly Sink Your Chances of Getting the Job. (Via Geek Press.)