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Long Strange Trip: The Untold Story of the Grateful Dead is worth watching (streaming on Amazon Prime) even if you’re not a Deadhead. Not to spoil the show, but the best scene is Episode 5, 33 minutes in. The Dead’s lyricist, Robert Hunter is asked to explain the lyrics to Dark Star. He recites

Dark star crashes, pouring its light into ashes.
Reason tatters, the forces tear loose from the axis.
Searchlight casting for faults in the clouds of delusion.
Shall we go, you and I while we can

Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds?

then asks the interviewer “What is unclear about that? It says what it means.”

My only brush with the Dead was a concert at Stanford’s Frost Amphitheater in the summer of 1982. A group of us young computer nerds (including a bunch of women; the New York Times hadn’t yet explained to them that they would never succeed in the industry) were chaperoned by Julie Sussman, wife of Gerry Sussman (but not the professor himself; “Gerry melts,” explained Julie). It was a perfect blue-sky day and the people who were on drugs seemed to be having a great time.

Will there ever be another American band like the Dead? The documentary suggests that there won’t be. Inexpensive real estate enabled the entire band to live and practice in a big house in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Zillow shows the value of a similar house today to be $4 million. A group of musicians like the Dead would today have to exile themselves to a small town where hardly anyone would ever hear them perform or go instantly into the most commercial genre possible so as to pay the rent.

Perhaps also due to the low cost of living in a lot of hip places, the documentary shows slender joyful people who don’t seem to be in a great hurry to get back to work.

The amount of drugs, especially LSD, that people were able to consume and still function is impressive. Jerry Garcia’s level of guitar playing is compelling, even for a mostly-classical music listener like myself (Rolling Stone rates Garcia as the 46th greatest guitarist of all time), and his work ethic is impressive. He pushed himself as hard as any Silicon Valley startup founder and kept pushing until his death at age 53 (which kicked off $38 million in alimony and child support lawsuits from multiple women against the $6 million estate; the documentary doesn’t cover this post-death scramble for cash, but you can read about it in the nytimes).

Perhaps there was selective editing by the filmmakers, but it seems that there was a lot less bitterness over politics compared to today, even though the footage spans the administrations of multiple presidents (at least Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, King Bush I, and Clinton) and there is no way that all of those guys could have appealed to all of the Dead Heads. None of the Dead Heads seem to be knitting pussy hats, protesting a government policy, or expressing their outrage over working conditions for a subgroup of employees at a company.

Readers: If you do love the Grateful Dead, what bands are their legitimate heirs?

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The Tesla 3 is now in production and a lot of people are on the waiting list. “Tax incentives might run out on Tesla, but electric cars will be just fine” says

In the US, a federal rebate program gives buyers of electric vehicles a $7,500 tax credit for the first 200,000 electric vehicles (EV) a carmaker delivers. The credit gradually phases out once the manufacturer passes the 200,000 mark. Tesla has already sold more than 100,000 cars in the US.

How can a buyer who is on the waiting list know what the net price will be? The buyer of Car #200,000 pays less than the buyer of Car #200,001, right? But there is no way to know exactly where one is in the queue, is there? Even if one knew one’s position among Tesla 3 buyers, Tesla could sell S and X models at sufficient rates to put a Tesla 3 order well beyond the 200,000th car built by Tesla. (After 200,000 cars the phase-out is calendar-based; details.)

Does it simply not matter? People who are rich enough to buy a Tesla don’t care if they pay $7,500 more than budgeted?

Separately, should Tesla have set up a separate “TeslaLite” corporation to build and sell the Tesla 3? That would be good for an additional 200,000 times $7,500 = $1.5 billion in government handouts?

Related:

• “Predicting When US Federal EV Tax Credit Will Expire For Tesla Buyers”
• Economic analysis of the $3 billion Cash for Clunkers handout (NBER Working Paper 20349); mostly taxpayer cash went to subsidize people who were going to buy cars anyway (i.e., taxpayers who weren’t rich enough to buy new cars subsidized Americans who were rich enough) and the “environmental component … failed to meet its environmental objectives in a cost-effective way” (if we had wanted to cut energy consumption and pollution, there were a lot better ways to spend $3 billion)
• Free Golf Cart–But Call It A “Low-Speed Neighborhood Vehicle” (CBS); the 2009 program where fellow taxpayers, via a tax credit, would pay up to 100 percent of the cost of an electric golf cart, typically around $6,500. See also the WSJ: “The IRS has also ruled that there’s no limit to how many electric cars an individual can buy, so some enterprising profiteers are stocking up on multiple carts while the federal credit lasts, in order to resell them at a profit later.” (The WSJ also showed how out of step they were with the modern USA: “This golf-cart fiasco perfectly illustrates tax policy in the age of Obama, when politicians dole out credits and loopholes for everything from plug-in cars to fuel efficient appliances, home insulation and vitamins. Democrats then insist that to pay for these absurdities they have no choice but to raise tax rates on other things—like work and investment—that aren’t politically in vogue. If this keeps up, it’ll soon make more sense to retire and play golf than work for living.”; Obama is gone, but Congress is just as devoted to this kind of tax policy as ever!)

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I was gulled by the title into downloading The Real Purpose of Parenting as an audiobook from Audible. Here are a couple of Amazon reviews that we can be pretty sure were not placed by the publisher:

It seems I’m the dissenter – but I started to hate this book. First, the author could have made his point in 15 pages, but the book is interminable (at just 196 pages) – presenting anecdote after anecdote, some of which are, as far as I can tell, barely relevant. Second, the presentation is pretentious and the prose tiring. Third, the book seems so intent on making a very specific point that it tramples over a considerable amount of potentially useful ancillary material. Difficult to read, sloppily written, a touch arrogant. With those gripes in mind, the author’s primary argument is perfectly valid, but not original (Brain Rules for Baby males the some point, in one sentence, 3 years earlier. . .). Bleghh.

As soon as Dr. Dembo started talking about how ridiculously centered our culture is on winning at all costs, and the fact that we don’t give our children any space to fail and learn, I found myself shaking my head in agreement. The trouble is, the author outlines the problem eloquently, and repeats it ad nauseum, but never really makes good on his claim to tell us what the alternative is, at least not in a realistic way. Yes, he does offer some examples from his own practice, but I suspect the half dozen examples or so are only the ones that had relatively happy endings. … I invested some seven hours listening to the Audible.com version, and believe a good blog article about listening to your children more and having more respect for who they really are and what they want and are capable of, would have achieved just as much.

As with most titles in the self-help section, the reviewers are correct in that a 15-page essay would convey the same information. The book was narrated by the author, though, and it was kind of interesting to hear just how convinced of his own importance a psychologist could be. (Actually it is unclear exactly what credentials make the author “Dr. Dembo”; he isn’t listed at healthgrades.com or vitals.com and a Google search didn’t reveal what his educational background might be. On the third hand, there is no research evidence that PhDs in clinical psychology are more effective than minimally trained laypeople at providing talk therapy.)

Dembo opens the book by attributing most of America’s problems to Dr. Benjamin Spock, the author of a 1946 book that Dembo seems to think was used as a bible by American parents (how many of them bothered to read even one book on parenting? and how many Americans actually follow the Bible for that matter?). According to Dembo, Dr. Spock told Americans that their children should be constantly reinforced with positive experiences, thus building their self-esteem. Dembo says that the result is children who are terrified of failure, afraid to try, and prone to cheating and/or lying in order to avoid or cover up failure.

What’s the solution though? Send a child to Poland on an exchange? (see Smartest Kids in the World: Poland for “In Poland, the lowest grade was always one, and the highest was five. After each test, he waited to see if anyone would get a five; no one ever did. No one seemed surprised or shattered, either. They shouldered their book bags and moved on to the next class. Kids in Poland were used to failing, it seemed. The logic made sense. If the work was hard, routine failure was the only way to learn. ‘Success,’ as Winston Churchill once said, ‘is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.'”) Dembo doesn’t say.

The anecdotes that Dembo provides are mostly of parents who don’t bother listening to their children and push them to live the parents’ dreams. Eventually the child snaps, quits college, and goes to work at a blue collar job. But what about Tiger Mom? She pushed her daughters to achieve academic and musical success and it apparently worked out wonderfully. If being an American means aspiring to collect SSDI, take OxyContin, and play Xbox, what is so bad about parents pushing children to do something other than than follow their natural inclinations? Usually in the families that Dembo describes there are multiple children and all but one actually did achieve what the parents hoped for. Shouldn’t we look at statistics rather than anecdotes to figure out what is likely to work out best for the average child?

One area where Dembo’s advice seems sound is, if your family has gotten to the point where everyone is riled up and shouting all the time, it makes sense to establish a set of laws (he calls it a “family constitution,” but really it is more like a legal code) that can be applied dispassionately. Reflecting the fact that every American who isn’t addicted to opiates is addicted to electronic devices, all of the suggested punishments are removal of phone/tablet/computer/Xbox privileges. So instead of yelling at a child for doing something bad, remind the child of the previously agreed-upon rule and punishment (“consequence” in the doublespeak of the book). Parents should have the demeanor of a police officer writing a speeding ticket.

Dembo’s experience is with families functional enough to get down to his office and pay his bills. Thus they tend to be upper-middle-class two-parent households, hardly representative of the modern U.S. (see “Fewer than half of U.S. kids today live in a ‘traditional’ family” (Pew Research)).

This book does raise the question of whether there are any good books on parenting per se. Are there any good books on interacting with other adults? How To Win Friends and Influence People? If there aren’t good books on how to have successful interactions with other adults, is it reasonable to expect that there should be good books on how to interact with children?

Readers: What else is out there in this subject area?

Related:

• The Nurture Assumption, a research-based book that concludes the main influences parents have on children are (1) genetic, and (2) choosing a neighborhood (thereby choosing a peer group)

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“Tech has become another way for men to oppress women” (Guardian by way of a Facebook friend) describes women being victimized by male-developed software:

Millions of people bark orders at Alexa, every day, but rarely are we encouraged to wonder why the domestic organiser is voiced by a woman. … But the issue is not only that technology products reflect a backward view of the role of women. They often also appear ignorant or indifferent to women’s lived experience. As the internet of things expands, more devices in our homes and on our bodies are collecting data about us and sending it to networks, a process over which we often have little control. This presents profound problems for vulnerable members of society, including survivors of domestic violence. Wearable technology can be hacked, cars and phones can be tracked, and data from a thermostat can reveal whether someone is at home. This potential is frightening for people who have experienced rape, violence or stalking.

Products that are more responsive to the needs of women would be a great start. But we should also be thinking bigger: we must avoid reproducing sexism in system design. … We need to allow women to reach their potential in workplaces where they feel safe and respected.

As is typical for articles describing what should be happening in offices full of computer nerds, the author has no experience with computer nerdism: “Lizzie O’Shea is a human rights lawyer, broadcaster and writer.”

If women are oppressed, as Ms. O’Shea suggests, why don’t they write their own software for female use? It doesn’t take a lot of programmers to build functional software (e.g., Adobe Photoshop was built by two programmers). Why don’t the world’s nearly 4 billion women shake off their digital chains? Can it be due to a lack of market size? Somehow these billions of women aren’t able to purchase their own software and/or choose which online services to use? Is the Guardian suggesting that there is a lack of basic intelligence among women? They can’t see that they are being oppressed by male-developed computer programs? Or perhaps the Guardian is suggesting that there is a lack of basic competence among women? What mixed-sex teams were able to develop in the 1960s (Internet), 1970s (Unix), or 1980s (Windows) is beyond the capability of an all-women team in 2017?

How is it possible to believe that women are oppressed by technology without simultaneously believing some deeply insulting stuff about women?

(For the record, I don’t personally believe that women are oppressed by technology and therefore I am not forced by logic to make some negative inferences about women’s intelligence or competence.)

Some fun reader comments on the article:

You see, if you immediately cast women as fragile victims, you are basically agreeing with all the worst misogynist stereotypes that should have been consigned to the nineteenth century. It always amazes me that so-called progressives eagerly embrace the idea that women need to be protected from the big, bad world. But I shouldn’t be amazed, because it is a direct consequence of identity politics – when you look at the world through the prism of difference, everything becomes divisive, and ‘equality for all’ is replaced by a competition for who can claim to be most vulnerable. When it comes to political power these days, nothing stands in the way of the victimhood juggernaught for too long. Of course, the great irony behind this article is that technology has enabled women, and men, to transcend many aspects of traditional gender roles. The effect of technology in the home, workplace and our leisure time has transformed how we spend our time, and how we communicate with one another. The anonymity of the internet often means you cannot judge someone on the mundane aspects of their identity – gender, race, sexuality. Instead you have to engage with what they say and believe. Technology has been a great existential leveller.

Facts are a tool of patriarchal oppression and should be replaced with NewTruth(tm) that define exactly how the world ought to be… Siri, name something toxic? “Masculinity”

Barking instructions to Alexa? Huh? If it was a male voice, then we would be asserting female oppression as we look to a ‘man’ for answers to all our questions!

Alexa was created by a woman. It’s two lead engineers were also both women, and the person who managed the entire team responsible for bringing it to market was Toni Read, a woman.

Indeed. In the past, women were chained to their sinks. Now, they’re chained to their phones.

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For many of the people expressing opinions regarding how many immigrants the U.S. should accept, the immigrants themselves are an abstract quantity. Unable to afford to live in Sanctimony Cities, immigrants themselves are invisible to the typical Hillary supporter (see Tyler Cowen explains why rich white Democrats freely express love for immigrants and people of color). The New York Times gives us some of the texture of what is being debated with “When Syria Came to Fresno: Refugees Test Limits of Outstretched Hand” Here’s my comment on the article:

Nasser Alobeid, who worked as a security guard in Syria, is still jobless, and he and his wife, Neveen Alassad, get by with a $1,100 monthly welfare check, food stamps … “Nasser doesn’t speak English,” Ms. Alassad, a mother of five, said in broken English while Syrian children poured into a concrete courtyard to play.

The good news for this family of 7 is that, assuming that demand from employers for non-English-fluent workers picks up, Mr. Alobeid will earn at least $15/hour under California’s new minimum wage law if he is able to find a job in the year 2023.

Other reader comments are interesting.

[Michael Cook from Tampa, FL] Why does Fresno as “the largest city in the agricultural belt” not have jobs available? This goes against everything we are hearing about “crops rotting in the fields”, due to the labor shortage.

How about the inter-generational conflict?

[Matt from Algonquin] American kids who go to public schools are the ones who sacrifice the most. Almost every public school now has translators. If they aren’t on staff, they are on call. For a school in the community that this article is about, you probably have Arabic translators and Hispanic translators. What does this mean to a English speaking American kid? They don’t get the attention that they deserve.. the teachers have to ‘teach down’ and e.g., use their Google translating software to communicate with the non-English speakers.

[response from GRH in “New England”] And, conveniently, the children of the politicians and the elite of both parties, be it the Clintons or the Bushes; Justice Merrick Garland or Justice John Roberts, choose to “opt-out” of the laws and rules they impose on everyone else and instead send their children to the most elite private schools…

A black woman, one of the victims that New York Times readers purport to seek to assist, takes a tougher line than Donald Trump:

[Lois from Seattle] I’m black and my family was brought here as slaves 7 generations ago! That said, just because a country takes pride on consisting of CITIZENS from the globe, it doesn’t justify an endless stream of entrance for everyone at any time!

At this point America is inundated with people from all over the world. That would be okay if they were all legal, spoke English, could support themselves w/o resorting to welfare, food stamps, subsidized housing, free breakfast/lunch, education, medical and social services for their children!!!

What’s in this for us, the American citizen who foots the bill?

I thought the rules with regard to “refugees” was for them to move to the nearest safe haven/country! Syrians have moved a world and culture away from their native land! They have crossed over many Arabic and predominant Muslim countries…yet, like others of their kind, they come expecting to be fully accommodated even though it would be unthinkable for them to do same for you in their country!

There should be an immigration moratorium! NO ONE allowed in for at least a year until we sort things out! … After all, we OWE them (immigrants/refugees) nothing!

Her white superiors set her straight:

[Judith Rael from Redondo Beach, CA] Lois, there is plenty of room and funding to help people like the Syrians. … Open your heart, teach your family how to give and care for the persecuted. You will be so much happier.

(“Plenty of funding”? Perhaps Ms. Rael means that if we were able to borrow $20 trillion before we started getting serious about bringing in Syrians we can easily borrow some more? And how do we know that this person speaking truth to a black woman is white? Google Image search suggests that people with a last name of “Rael” are generally white.)

There are a bunch more of these priceless exchanges. People with Hispanic names argue for restrictions on immigration while those with non-Hispanic names point out and correct their thoughtcrime.

From a careful reader of the Times:

[Const from NY] A few days ago, you had a story about how hard it is for many Californians to find affordable housing. Here, we have a story about people from Syria being given housing in that same state.

Canadians fight (politely):

[science prof from “Canada”] Private sponsorship by individuals or groups, as done in Canada, allows refugees to rapidly integrate and become part of the wider community beyond the local group of the same ethnicity.

[Danielle Davidson from “Canada and USA”] Canada has enormous problems with Muslim Syrians. Too many are on welfare. Even the NYT had an article about it. They don’t adapt, and their frustrations will affect their children. We will see too soon how that turns out. In the meantime, As a woman, I find their culture outrageous. They are prejudiced against women, gays, Christians. Why do we have to accept so many people that don’t like the American way of life.

Modest proposals from Trump country:

[Hank Batts from Lexington, Kentucky] Send a few thousand of these folks to the upper west side of Manhattan and another few thousand to Brookline, Mass. The people there just LOVE diversity.

[Jon] The frontier closed in 1898. We are the third most populous country in the world. We have plenty of people. We have no need to import people to fill up an empty country and instead should be concentrating on creating a vibrant economy for Americans not burdening our economy with millions more dependents and low-skill workers.

From a resident of a West Coast city that is way too expensive for a non-English-speaking immigrant and that has long waiting lists for free public housing:

[Blue from Seattle] If any Syrian refugees are reading this, I would like to say welcome to the United States. I am glad you are here. To the [Syrian] man [in the NYT photo] with the four daughters–your children are wonderful.

[response from a “blue state” reader] Good, please list your address so we can send them all over to your house. As a citizen who does physical labor at 58 years old, I resent my wages being taxed so we can give these people welfare, food stamps, free medical, and housing allowance.

Not everyone in Hillary country has been properly educated:

[Olivia from NYC] We need a moratorium on all refugees and all immigrants. This country cannot accept everyone in the world who can’t make it in their own country. Welfare, food stamps, section 8 housing, free health care and education for their many children at the cost to American tax payers! … How is it that liberals don’t protest the repression of these women?? These people with their 7th century mentality don’t belong in this country. Build the wall. Close the door. Deport.

[Artful Rabbit from Silver Spring [Maryland]] They have no willingness to manage the size of their families. … You are living hand-to-mouth in a war torn country, threatened by ISIS or now you are a refugee in a host country and the thinking is, yep, good time to put another one in the oven? I suppose as long as there are other people willing to pay for the needs of their huge family, why not.

How about the good citizens of Fresno themselves?

[Ryan from Fresno] Please hold all applause until the movie has ended. As a community we did not vote for this. It has been shoved down our throats by a few religious organizations. Yes these are human beings and I have a heart, but we need to be logical about this. [translation: “I don’t have a heart.”] … We have high energy cost, high unemployment, lower wages that do not match the inflated cost for housing and rent, countless gangs and homeless encampments all along the 99. … I would have much rather opened my pocket book and helped them resettle in a predominately Muslim country, where they share the same culture, language and religious values. … we have experienced this before with the Southeast Asian and Central American refugees. Yes, there are some that become model citizens and introduce culture into our society, but they don’t tell you the other side, the ones who start gangs and form culturally isolated ghettos.

Readers: Do you agree with me that we need more of this kind of reporting? Bringing in Airbus A380-loads of immigrants from the other side of the planet is a relatively new concept. Shouldn’t we be curious about how it works out for the typical immigrant? Also, what do we make of the fact that the NYT readers, a fairly homogeneous group politically, are fighting so much in response to this article? If the above Canadian “science prof” is correct and it takes a village to welcome an immigrant, what happens when roughly half of the Hillary supporters seem to wish that the immigrant had never showed up? Could this be the issue that prevents Democrats from uniting to oppose the Trumpenfuhrer?

Related:

• “Getting deported was the best thing that ever happened to me” (CNN Money); the texture of life moving in the opposite direction.

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Friends keep asking me about the Air Canada Airbus that nearly collided with planes on a taxiway at SFO on July 7. The NTSB preliminary report is now available (Incident Number DCA17IA148). It says “The flight descended below 100 feet above the ground and initiated a go-around after overflying the first airplane on the taxiway.” Given the crazy brightness of transport jet landing lights, one big open question is why the pilots of the planes on the taxiway didn’t notice the Air Canada crew’s mistake earlier. If you want to get updates on the NTSB’s work, just visit their main aviation query page and enter “DCA17IA148” near the bottom of the form (“Accident Number” field).

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Mom and I loved Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania on our Royal Caribbean cruise last summer. It seems that these UNESCO World Heritage destinations are not appealing to everyone: “Refugees frustrated and trapped in chilly Baltic states” (BBC):

Mekharena, an Eritrean, came to Latvia from Italy a year ago. Reaching Europe was an odyssey – he came via Uganda, Ethiopia, Israel and Egypt. … He was not allowed to choose the destination himself, and was not happy about it. “There are lots of Eritreans everywhere in Europe. They talk to one another. We all know that in Germany they give you an apartment and €400 (£350; $450) pocket money. But in Latvia they don’t give us anything – just €139 a month,” he told BBC Russian.

An EU solidarity plan, agreed in 2015, envisaged relocating 160,000 Syrian and Eritrean refugees throughout the EU, from overcrowded camps in Greece and Italy. Only a fraction have left the camps so far.

Refugees are moving on from all three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Of 349 asylum seekers taken in by Lithuania, 248 left as soon as they had received official refugee status … Benefits for refugees in Lithuania vary from €102 to €204 a month.

In Estonia the situation is similar: of the 136 who arrived on the EU programme, 79 have moved elsewhere in Europe. Refugees in Estonia receive €130 a month.

The BBC doesn’t bother to cover this, but I don’t think that these countries are disfavoring refugees compared to their own citizens. The Eritrean who was disappointed at not getting an apartment in addition to cash may not have gotten an apartment if he had been a low-income citizen (see Russian welfare: all cash; I think it is the same in the Baltics). In all three Baltic countries I learned that having sex with the richest person in the country would yield only about 200 euros per month in child support (if they’d come to Boston for a week, for comparison, and had sex with a dentist, they’d get a wire transfer of $3,333 per month for 23 years under the Massachusetts guidelines; see also the “American Child Support Profits Without an American Child” section of “Child Support Litigation without a Marriage”).

Does this make the fights that Europeans are having about who will take refugees (immigrants are supposed to yield economic growth, but somehow these countries are fighting for the right to become poorer by rejecting them?) moot? If refugees can and do move once they are “settled” with their 130 euro/month welfare check in Estonia, why does it matter how many refugees Estonia “accepts”? It seems that there are bureaucratic obstacles to moving to whichever European country offers the best package for immigrants:

“If I move to another country, they won’t accept me. I know several people who left Latvia. They all went to Germany but none of them can work there,” says Mekharena. Refugee status in Latvia only gives you the right to claim benefits or work in Latvia. It does not guarantee anything in other EU countries.

Readers, especially those in Europe: What’s happening with the refugee influx to Europe? Hatred of Donald Trump seems to have crowded out most other news in the U.S. for the past year or so.

Related:

• Estonia: Tough campaign stop for Bernie Sanders
• my photos from Talinn, Estonia
• my photos from Riga, Latvia
• my photos from the boring port of Klaipeda, Lithuania (the capital is inland)

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Back in 2014 I asked Why aren’t there a lot more police shootings in the U.S.? (observing the ready-to-shoot posture of a police officer approaching a harmless-looking woman in a stalled vehicle) and then Should we have unarmed police? (at the beginning of the wave of American news media choosing to cover police shootings).

Now Mohamed Noor, an immigrant from Somalia, has shot Justine Damond, an immigrant from Australia. Had they both emigrated to Britain rather than the U.S., it seems safe to assume that Ms. Damond would still be alive in her pajamas. Mr. Noor, as a basic patrol officer, would not have been armed.

(From what I have read so far it is especially sad because Ms. Damond was calling the police for purely altruistic reasons, i.e., to report the possibility of an unknown stranger being a crime victim.)

Related:

• Murder of Kitty Genovese (a false New York Times story led to a debate about why so many people witnessed the crime but did not call the police); see also “Her shocking murder became the stuff of legend. But everyone got the story wrong.” (Washington Post)
• from “The Domestic Violence Parallel Track”: Professor Callie Marie Rennison, a criminology expert at the University of Colorado Denver, explained to us that crime of all kinds, including sexual violence and domestic violence, disproportionately affect lower income Americans and may be underreported: “I’ve done a 180 on this during my career,” she said. “Now I think ‘Why would anyone want to report a crime? What would they gain?'”

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“From hooves to helicopters” is worthwhile reading for instructors. What does it feel like to take a first lesson? Most of us can’t remember, of course!

Here’s one argument in favor of a flight school using Robinson R44s for primary training:

I was led out into the hangar by my first flight instructor. With two headsets in hand, she walked me over to what I was certain was a glorified go-kart. [The R22’s] airframe left little to the imagination and the exposure of its components was unsettling to my extremely untrained eye.

Not related, but I wish that we had space for it: bunkbed/home theater/desk for kids made from Bell 206 parts.

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“Would You Agree to Sex with a Total Stranger?” (Psychology Today, June 28, 2017) contains some surprising data:

Twenty years later, Hald and Høgh-Olesen (2010) largely replicated these findings in Denmark, with 59 percent of single men and 0 percent of single women agreeing to a stranger’s proposition, “Would you go to bed with me?” Interestingly, they also asked participants who were already in relationships, finding 18 percent of men and 4 percent of women currently in a relationship responded positively to the request.

Being married/partnered made a man much less likely to agree to have sex with a stranger, but made a woman more likely!

[Of course we have to consider the possibility that women who are more likely to agree to have sex with strangers are more likely to get married/partnered.]

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