Thankfully, the FDA has something called a “jelly bean rule” that prohibits companies from labeling sugary products as “healthy.”   The Center for Society in the Public Interest won a motion to dismiss a suit in federal court against VitaminWater, owned by Coke.  Coke argued that by including the sugar content in each bottle (33 grams if you’re interested), it was ensuring that consumers wouldn’t be deceived.  But any of us that has reached for a drink of this sort knows that we’re not perfect information seekers.  This is a classic case of satisficing – or seeking the “good enough” outcome rather than the “optimal” outcome.  For satisficing to be effective, we need to trust the veracity of the choice.  So if Coke labels a product as “healthy,” we probably should have some guaranteee that a vetting process has taken place so that ingestion of the product isn’t actualy the opposite of healthy.   That’s where the jelly bean rule comes in.

Government is good 🙂

via Utne Reader.

Buried in an article about a recent AP-Univision poll that focuses on dwindling Hispanic support for President Obama is this splash of cold water for the GOP:

With the first midterm congressional elections of Obama’s presidency in three months, the poll shows a whopping 50 percent of Hispanics citizens call themselves Democrats, while just 15 percent say they are Republicans.

By 2050, Latinos are supposed to represent 30% of the US electorate.  Republicans want to tread lightly on the immigration question.  We’ve got long memories!  Just look at the GOP in California.  They’re just getting up off the mat after their campaign in support of proposition 187 in the mid 1990’s:

“Latino” as an ethnic identity is not a monolith.  It’s possible that many of those who identify as “Latino” will not have children who do so.   But if I were a Democratic strategist, I might push harder for immigration reform.  Just a thought.

Via: Mark Halperin

Yes! Magazine has an interesting blog series tby the Interfaith Amigos, an interfaith trio of spiritual leaders. One post in particular by Rabbai Ted Falcon poses some interesting question about how you seek common ground with those who have seemingly intractable or irrational positions.   To wit:

I am reminded, too, of a parent-teacher-administrator meeting at a school where a friend used to teach. The topic under (sometimes heated) discussion related to a proposed expansion of foreign language offerings at the school. One woman, clearly upset, rose with a challenge.

“If English was good enough for Jesus,” she said, “why isn’t it good enough for us?”

Rabbai Falcon’s prescription is to move away from arguing the legitimacy of specific statements towards seeking to understand the context in which the statement is being made.

In the school meeting I mentioned, it is likely that the woman and I shared a common denominator of interest in education that best prepares students for college admission and for living in the world.

I appreciate the wisdom and grace of the Rabbai’s efforts…I really do.  But as a practicing political scientist, I’m often confronted with views and discourses that seem to rely primarily on the denigration of a chosen other.  I’m sure many will disagree, but the callous way that some people speak about undocumented immigrants reflects not to a willingness to find a common ground solution, but a need to position oneself vis-a-vis a “other” who purportedly have no claims to an equal humanity.  

Simply calling a human being an “illegal” speaks to a desire to invalidate the depth and complexity of 10 million people living in the United States without documentation.  Martha Nussbaum observes that every society creates objects worthy of disgust.   Some days it seems that no amount of back-story will affect the views of people who see themselves aggrieved by “illegals,”  when their real beef should be with large, impersonal, structural forces that has exacerbated the free flow of labor across borders.  But you can’t exactly be “disgusted” by trans-national capital.  You can however, be disgusted by its by-product.  Particularly if it speaks a different language, looks different and has different norms and customs.

My pessimistic thought for the day. Enjoy 🙂

Ever wondered what would happen if poor people voted at the same rate as the non-poor?  Dylan Matthews did a quick and dirty merging of CNN exit polls and Census data and found that Obama’s vote margin would have been significantly larger than McCain’s in the 2008 election.

I found that, with even turnout across income levels, Obama would have received 55.2 percent of the vote and McCain 42.7 percent. The actual results (PDF) were 52.9 percent for Obama and 45.7 percent for McCain. Obama would gain 2.3 points, and McCain would lose 3, with other candidates picking up the rest.

Matthews doesn’t think this is a particularly big shift, but it’s seismic if you compare it to past presidential elections. It highlights both the challenges and opportunities Democrats face in upcoming elections. Voters that make over $50,000 are over represented in the electorate and more disposed to vote Republican than those making less than $50,000. Historically this is a more politically active group. Evidence of this is the recent survey data that shows that tea party members are more affluent than the rest of the public.

We can look at this two ways. Republicans have done a better job in the last few years convincing those making over $50,000 that they are the party best able to serve their interests. Of course, income is not the sole determinant of vote preference, but it’s a biggie. However, this also means there is a big opportunity for Democrats to capture the “slack” in the portion of the electorate that makes under $50,000. This is where innovative strategies for increasing turnout among working class voters could benefits Democrats greatly.

The problem, however is that this is a hard population to turn out. A weakened associational life in the US means that there are no labor unions or civic organizations to drive turnout. Advocacy groups fight the good fight, but they lack the resources and the people power to engage in the mass scale mobilization necessary to close the income voting gap. I had high hopes for the Obama netroots strategy serving as a new mobilization paradigm, but the enthusiasm of grassroots web activists seems to have waned. If the Democrats have any chance in 2010, they need to somehow get working class voters engaged in the face of difficult economic circumstances. Good luck!

Lisa Wade at Sociological Images posted a fascinating chart on the level of patriotism citizens of different countries exhibit – details here.  Predictably, the USA ranks #1 in thinking they are #1 (although not by much).  But what was more interesting was a passage Wade quoted from Claude Fischer:

We believe that we are #1 almost across the board, when in fact we are far below number one in many arenas – in health, K-12 education, working conditions, to mention just a few. Does our #1 pride then blind us to the possibility that we could learn a thing or two from other countries?

When does national pride become an unproductive hubris?  This isn’t a new question, but the data makes concrete a key paradox in American culture.  How can a country be both innovative, dynamic and multicultural while at the same time exhibiting a reluctance to embrace ideas from other countries?  Is it just sunny optimism to believe erroneously that your culture is better than others, or is it a lack of national and personal  maturity to cling to a myth of national superiority?  I prefer to live in a country with a relentless optimism and even maybe arrogance to a measured realism, even if a bit misguided.  There’s a certain charm in thrusting oneself headlong into an uncertain future.  However I do wonder at what point does national conceit turn into a farce?  As the US loses its share of global output and productivity, does a maturing of national character need to take place to keep us from becoming a caricature of our current selves?

Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber say reasoning “does not mean what we think it means”:

Reasoning is generally seen as a mean to improve knowledge and make better decisions. Much evidence, however, shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This suggests rethinking the function of reasoning. Our hypothesis is that the function of reasoning is argumentative. It is to devise and evaluate arguments intended to persuade. Reasoning so conceived is adaptive given human exceptional dependence on communication and vulnerability to misinformation. A wide range of evidence in the psychology or reasoning and decision making can be reinterpreted and better explained in the light of this hypothesis.

I like a conceptual take-down of rational choice theory as much as the next guy, but I wonder why it has to be either-or.  Personally, I think reasoning is context dependent.  There are times where I reason to win an argument and there are times when I reason to show how smart I am and cover up any  baseline insecurities I might have 🙂  It would be great if scholarship started moving beyond hot vs. cold cognition to looking at when cognition is hot and when it is cold.

HT: Henry Farrell (Monkey Cage)

For anyone who has ever tried to make full sense of Rousseau but couldn’t (like me), Matthew Mendham nicely summarizes the central tensions in Rousseau’s thought:

Rousseau seems to argue, on one hand, that moderns are luxurious, lazy, weak, and soft, in opposition to primitive hardiness, vigor, ferocity, and rustic virtue. On the other hand, he depicts modern life as cruel, frenzied, competitive, and harsh, in opposition to primitive gentleness, idleness, abundance, and spontaneity.

Here is his recent article (behind a paywall) in the American Journal of Political Science where he tries to help wayward Rousseau souls 🙂

Robert Gibbs says the House is up for grabs in 2010.   My political analysis — duh!!!  A dismally weak economy coupled with the typical coattail effect for Obama in the 2008 election that brought in a whole set of members that had no business winning their races (Democrats representing both of the Dakotas?) is a recipe for big losses.  Jonathan Chait has a nice summation of the effect of midterms on the party in power.  He links to this chart from Seth Masket that highlights the relationship (albeit weak) between economic strength and midterm losses for the president’s party.

/p>

It makes sense.  Republicans are all ginned up = Obama’s a Nazi or a Socialist.  Democrats are dispirited = No we cant?!?  Turnout will drive the election and based on my empirical analysis of catching Fox News on the TV screen at my gym, Republican leaning voters will be primed.  In my 30 minute treadmill run, I learned that “Moslims” are taking over the World Trade Center site, “Felons” stole the Minnesota Senate election for Al Franken and Iranian nuclear engineers are milling around Washington, DC.  It all makes me want to run to the next Tea Party meeting!

So what’s the right midterm strategy for the Democrats?  I wonder why the Democrats haven’t decided to push back in terms of turnout.  Why not recognize you’re going to get shellacked in 2010 and lay the groundwork for future elections.  One key way to do this would be to push hard for immigration reform.  Put it on the agenda.  Force the Republicans to take positions that will be hard to explain to their Latino constituents.  Instead of taking the centrist high ground, why not “go Rove” and work to build a progressive base.  It seems that the Democrats in power are too busy pursuing centrists who are largely disengaged and are not planning to turn out for this election.  You be better served by growing a progressive base that might help buffer against big midterm losses in future elections, even if it costs you a few seats this time around.

My 2 cents 🙂

Yes Magazine asks whether it is time for a tech sabbath? I wonder how much my consumption of Internet content (particularly blogs, email, facebook and twitter) are affecting my attention span.  I don’t want to go all Nick Carr on everyone, but I’m pretty sure the Internet is doing something to my ability to engage with complex ideas for sustained periods of time.  This is the main reason I’ve backed away from this blog.

Rather than run from it, I’ve decided to embrace it (except for my new-found Sunday Tech Sabbath)!

Club America and Pachuca won’t be there.

Two of Mexico’s prominent club teams canceled a July 7th friendly at the University of Phoenix stadium in response to Arizona’s immigration bill signed into law last month.

The decision by the Mexican clubs means that the football stadium loses a crucial summer revenue opportunity. In 2007, 62,000 fans showed up to the stadium for a meaningless “friendly” between the United States and Mexico. For Club America and Pachuca, you might have seen a similar number.

This news event highlights both the challenges facing soccer/futbol in the United States and it’s probable success. I know Franklin Foer said this already, but Soccer in the USA is on the side of the “modernity project.” In a recent paper, Pippa Norris and Ron Ingelhardt identify five key elements of the modernity project:

more secular
more tolerant sexual attitudes
less nationalistic
more politically engaged
more accepting of “free market” values

This modernity project is tied to what are commonly and simplistically described as Western values: openness, tolerance, embrace of diversity, an embrace of neo-liberal capitalism, democratic governance, etc. They find that the nations of the “developed West” are moving rapidly towards this model.

Often, these values cut across local norms and traditions. They are indifferent to borders. With respect to immigration, if an undocumented immigrant can do the job for less than a US citizen with little risk of sanction for breaking the law on the part of the employer, then the market produces strong incentives to hire that worker. As it relates to soccer, if 62,000 people want to watch a “foreign” game, then there are strong incentives to put that game on.

Say what you want about how “nobody cares about soccer in the US,” but look at the list of European and South American teams visiting the United States to play “friendlies” against Major League Soccer (USA league) sides.

Matches & Scores:

-Wed May 19
New England Revolution v Benfica (Portugal)
Venue: Gillette Stadium in Foxborough MA

-May 19-22
Sister Cities International Cup
-Wed May 19
Chicago Fire v Paris Saint-Germain (France)
Legia Warsaw (Poland) v Red Star Belgrade(Serbia)
-Sat May 22
2 Winners play for cup
2 Losers play for pride
Venue: Toyota Park – Bridgeview IL

-Sun May 23
New York Red Bulls v Juventus (Italy)
Venue: Red Bull Arena
Los Angeles Galaxy v Boca Juniors (Argentina)
Venue: Home Depot Center – Carson CA

-Wed May 26
DC United v AC Milan (Italy)
Venue: RFK Stadium
Seattle Sounders v Boca Juniors (Argentina)
Venue: Qwest Field – Seattle WA

-Sun May 30
Chicago Fire v AC Milan (Italy)
Venue: Toyota Park

-Sat Jun 12
Sacramento Cup
Chivas USA v San Jose Earthquakes
Venue: Raley Field – West Sacramento CA

-Sun Jun 13
New England Revolution v Cruzeiro (Brazil)
Venue: Gillette Stadium – Foxborough MA

-Sat Jun 19
DC United v El Salvador (national team)
Venue: RFK Stadium – Washington DC

???June ???
New York Red Bulls v Cruzeiro (Brazil)
Venue: Red Bull Arena

-Wed Jul 14
Philadelphia Union v Glasgow Celtic (Scotland)
Venue: PPL Park – Chester PA

-Fri Jul 16
Celtic v Manchester United (England)
Venue: Rogers Center – Toronto ON

-Sat Jul 17
San Jose Earthquakes v Tottenham (England)
Venue: Buck Shaw Stadium

-Sun Jul 18
Seattle Sounders v Celtic (Scotland)
Venue: Qwest Field – Seattle WA

-Wed Jul 21
Philadelphia Union v Manchester United (England)
Venue: Lincoln Financial Field – Philadelphia PA
Toronto FC v Bolton (England)
Venue: BMO Field – Toronto ON

-July 22-25
New York Football Challenge
New York Red Bulls
Manchester City (England)
Tottenham (England)
Sporting Lisbon (Portugal)
Venue: Red Bull Arena

-Sun Jul 25
Kansas City Wizards v Manchester United (England)
Venue: Arrowhead Stadium – Kansas City MO

-Wed Jul 28
MLS All-Star Game
MLS All Stars v Manchester United (England)
Venue: Reliant Stadium – Houston TX

The increased flows of people, ideas, and technologies has made it easier for people to move across borders, but more importantly it has made it easier for the games those people love to follow them. This fluidity makes it harder for individuals to maintain and preserve “culture” and tradition. To the extent that sport is a reflection of parochial interests, “foreign” games pose a threat to those deeply held traditions. I put foreign in quotes because soccer has a tradition in the United States that as old as football and basketball but it never made the crossover into mainstream fandom (see Andrei Markovitz for why this is).

I think that both Arizona’s (an the nation’s) response to immigration and some people’s hatred of soccer in the U.S. are largely cut from a similar cloth…. a discomfort with the modernity project. One response might be that this is all high-falutin’ professor speak and that soccer is simply too slow and boring. Possible, but no other sport produces the vitriol that soccer does among sports writers and commentators on blogs. Heck, there’s even an entire website devoted to “saving the world” from the game.

Hyperbolic hatred of this sport in the USA, I think, is the result of in perceived intrusion upon a group’s desire to create their own cultural norms. The decision to go watch “the footy” on a summer Saturday is a direct rejection of a time honored tradition of watching the “ball game.” In the same way that some are offended by undocumented immigration because it curtails a group’s ability to define who is a member and who is not.

In both cases, however, the weight of the modernity project is strong. Ingelhardt and Norris find that modernity does not replace local culture, but it modifies it. They caution that “Sweden is not in the process of becoming America, nor is the U.S. becoming Sweden.” It doesn’t eliminate local culture, but it forces societies to reckon with it.

The USA will accept soccer, but will give it its own provincial touches. We’ll have an “MLS Cup” cause’ that’s how we roll! We have a “draft” where teams select college players, because that’s what the NFL does. We have an “Eastern” and “Western” conference, dammit! And absolutely, positively, no promotion and relegation!!

HT to Chuck D for the title