Sunday/ Zacchaeus

Most government transfers are not from the rich to the poor. Instead, government takes from the relatively unorganized (e.g., consumers and general taxpayers) and gives to the relatively organized (groups politically organized around common interests, such as the elderly, sugar farmers, and steel producers). The most important factor in determining the pattern of redistribution appears to be political influence, not poverty.--Lee



One way of telling the distance one has from his culture is when a person does not know of basic social agreements, like time. Today is Daylight Savings and I did not know that. So I was an hour early for Mass.
Dunkin is starting Beyond Meat this week.
On my way for coffee, a delivery robot crossed the street in front of me.
PGC members dinner last night. Very small and old. I had a surprisingly good meal with a caesar salad and some good steak.


According to data released this week by the Energy Information Administration, there were 12 new production records set in August for natural gas and oil production at the national and state levels, as America’s emergence as a world energy superpower just became even more established.


Does smoking lots of pot make you dumb or do dumb people smoke lots of pot? Mostly, the latter. Twin studies do not show the loss of cognition in pot smokers.

Itzchak Tzachi Raz has a paper coming out. The concept looks very soft to me but this is from its abstract:

This study examines the historical origins of American individualism. I test the hypothesis that local heterogeneity of the physical environment limited the ability of farmers on the American frontier to learn from their successful neighbors, turning them into self-reliant and individualistic people. Consistent with this hypothesis, I find that current residents of counties with higher agrarian heterogeneity are more culturally individualistic, less religious, and have weaker family ties. They are also more likely to support economically progressive policies, to have positive attitudes toward immigrants, and to identify with the Democratic Party. Similarly, counties with higher environmental heterogeneity had higher taxes and a higher provision of public institutions during the 19th century. This pattern is consistent with the substitutability of formal and informal institutions as means to solve collective action problems, and with the association between “communal” values and conservative policies. These findings also suggest that, while understudied, social learning is an important determinant of individualism.

 There’s a tactic spreading across the Web named after treatment usually reserved for criminals: fingerprinting. At least a third of the 500 sites Americans visit most often use hidden code to run an identity check on your computer or phone. Websites from CNN and Best Buy to porn site Xvideos and WebMD are dusting your digital fingerprints by collecting details about your device you can’t easily hide. It doesn’t matter whether you turn on “private browsing” mode, clear tracker cookies or use a virtual private network. Some even use the fact you’ve flagged “do not track” in your browser as a way to fingerprint you. (from the WashPo)


                         Zacchaeus

Today's gospel has Zacchaeus, the small tax collector, climb a tree to see Jesus in Jerico. There all sorts of storylines here: Jerico below sea level and Jerusalem on the hill, Jerico being one of the world's oldest cities (at least 8ooo years before Christ), the value of a man determined by his works, the specificity of the man's size. But here is a popular children's song:

"Zacchaeus was a wee little man,
And a wee little man was he.
He climbed up in a sycamore tree
For the Lord he wanted to see.

And as the Savior passed that way
He looked up in the tree and he said,
'Zacchaeus you come down, For I'm going to your house today!'
For I'm going to your house today!

Zacchaeus was a wee little man,
But a happy man was he,
For he had seen the Lord that day
And a happy man was he;
And a very happy man was he.”