I am not much of a football fan, but as one who grew up in South Bend, and who is related to several graduates of Notre Dame, I especially enjoyed Lou Holtz’s heartfelt and articulate defense of free speech and his rejection of the efforts to cancel the leprechaun of the fighting Irish. [The segment was broadcast at the end of Fox & Friends on Thurs., Aug. 26, 2021.]
Author: Art Diamond
“Creatively Destructive Innovation” Is Continuous in Book Publishing Industry
(p. A13) In 2000 the RAND Corporation invited a group of historians—including me—to address a newly pressing question: Would digital media revolutionize society as profoundly as Gutenberg and movable type? Two decades later, John Thompson’s answer is yes, but not entirely as predicted. And our forecasts were often wrong because we overlooked key variables: We cannot understand the impact of technologies “without taking account of the complex social processes in which these technologies were embedded and of which they were part.”
Mr. Thompson provides that context in “Book Wars” (Polity, 511 pages, $35), an expert diagnosis of publishers and publishing, robustly illustrated with charts, graphs, tables, statistics and case studies.
. . .
My warning to the RAND corporation was to avoid succumbing to the “Two Big Bangs Theory”—the assumption that there were only two world-changing events in the history of print, in or around 1450 and 2000. With books, change is a constant. In the last two centuries the publishing trade has dealt with one creatively destructive innovation after another—mechanized printing and papermaking, railway bookstalls and distribution networks, linotype and offset printing, photomechanical reproduction, paperbacking and books-of-the-month. The movies opened up vast new possibilities (and revenues) for novelists, who increasingly wrote with the screen in mind, as Ernest Hemingway did when he insisted on casting Gary Cooper in “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” And television supercharged book publicity, climaxing (so far) with Oprah. While Mr. Thompson is entirely right to conclude that the transformation of publishing in the past 20 years has been bewildering, that’s nothing new. In a dynamic capitalist economy, the dust never settles.
For the full review, see:
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date August 8, 2021, and has the title “BOOKSHELF; ‘Book Wars’ Review: Publishing in a Protean Age.”)
The book under review is:
Thompson, John B. Book Wars: The Digital Revolution in Publishing. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2021.
Capitalist Innovations Made Rapid Covid-19 Vaccines Possible
(p. A15) The Wuhan lab appears to have operated, in part, with U.S. government grant funding, although American scientists had no oversight role. Chinese scientists allegedly pursued gain-of-function research, increasing the virulence and transmissibility of certain viruses. It isn’t unheard of for a virus to escape from a government-funded lab, and the evidence increasingly suggests that’s what happened in Wuhan, even as China dubiously points a finger at the U.S. military.
Regardless of which government, if any, contributed to the emergence of Covid-19, the pandemic was quickly controlled by innovation from the private economy. New vaccines and private protocols, not government mandates, mainly slowed the spread in workplaces and schools. The pandemic originated from government failures that had to be corrected by private actors.
Even if the lab-leak theory proves false, and it turns out that SARS-CoV2 passed directly from animals to humans, one could still argue the Chinese government’s actions created the pandemic. Beijing covered up evidence of the virus’s early spread and allowed international flights from Wuhan during January and February 2020 while locking down domestic travel.
. . .
American capitalism supported decades of innovation that created conditions conducive to the rapid development of the Covid vaccines. About 70% of the returns to medical research and development across the world come from the U.S., where price controls are less prevalent than elsewhere and companies compete to bring new treatments and cures to market. Without the U.S. market, investors would have shied away from funding the cumulative advances that eventually led to successful Covid vaccines. In this sense, the U.S. market-based healthcare economy saved the world from Covid-19. None of it would have happened in a government-run health system.
For the full commentary see:
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date August 9, 2021, and has the same title as the print version.)
If Jony Ive Had Designed a Hand Axe for Steve Jobs 200,000 Years Ago
(p. C14) From the beginning, the purpose of the Masterpiece column has been to highlight artworks of surpassing cultural significance and discuss the particular qualities that make them so. How, then, to explain the intrusion into this august company of a utilitarian object, in this case a biface, or hand axe, dated 700,000-200,000 B.C.?
Behind the creative impulse is the aesthetic sense, the desire to make something beautiful, or at least pleasing to the eye. For almost all of human history, utilitarian objects, by contrast, were all about practicality, crafting something that can get the job done. Never the twain shall meet.
Two factors, though, suggest that here the dividing line might not be crystal clear. The first is the biface’s location, not in a natural history museum where they are usually to be found, but the Metropolitan Museum, a repository of art.
The second is its label. “This is one of the largest and most finely crafted bifaces found in France,” we are told. “Its size and the care with which it was made raise the question of whether it was meant to be a tool, or if it was chiefly valued for its appearance and reserved for a different use.”
. . .
From a broadly rounded bottom the two sides flare out then turn inward, ever so gradually tapering to a rounded point that mirrors the bottom edge in miniature. Its changes in depth are equally subtle and well-calibrated, maintaining a uniform thickness along its length and slowly thinning to a shallow wedge starting about three quarters of the way up.
Then there is the material. Flint comes in many colors. The rich caramel hue of this one, lighter in spots than others, may be what caught the eye of our anonymous artisan in the first place. It has veining, too, which likewise seems to have been an attraction, since its curves are echoed by the adjacent edge of the stone.
For the full commentary, see:
Eric Gibson. “The Dawn of Aesthetics.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, July 10, 2021): C14.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date July 9, 2021, and has the same title as the print version.)
Slow FDA Feeds Skepticism of mRNA Covid-19 Vaccines
(p. A19) In December 2020, the F.D.A. approved the distribution of mRNA coronavirus vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna under the agency’s emergency use authorization provision, which permits an accelerated approval process for medications and treatments during a public health emergency.
. . .
In theory, full approval should be imminent, since Pfizer applied for full approval in early May, and Moderna asked for full approval on June 1. This process is often long, requiring the agency to inspect manufacturing plants and review considerable amounts of documentation for vaccine production. But in this case, because of the urgency of the pandemic, the vaccine makers began to submit this material, called a biologics licensing application, in late 2020, and they’ve continued to submit more information. The F.D.A. has already reviewed some of the submissions and has provided feedback to the manufacturers. The emergency authorizations were granted more than six months ago. That’s more than ample time for the agency to conduct plant inspections and review the applications.
. . .
Fortunately, two doses of the mRNA vaccines appear to provide nearly full protection from Covid-related hospitalization and death, and the shots substantially reduce infections.
The lives and health of millions of Americans rest on the F.D.A.’s decision to fully license these vaccines.
For the full commentary see:
Eric J. Topol. “Vaccines Need Full Approval.” The New York Times (Monday, July 5, 2021): A19.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date June 1, 2021, and has the title “It’s Time for the F.D.A. to Fully Approve the mRNA Vaccines.”)
Evolution Did Not Design an Optimal Human Body
(p. A15) In Alex Bezzerides’s entertaining “Evolution Gone Wrong: The Curious Reasons Why Our Bodies Work (or Don’t),” the author’s quest is to determine the origins of the “aches and pains of the masses and why they happen”—not the mechanical causes of our maladies but the evolutionary ones.
. . .
. . ., according to Mr. Bezzerides, . . . four million years ago our ancestors transitioned from a fruit- and leaves-based diet to one of grasses and sedges. Their molars ballooned out to gargantuan proportions, which was not at first problematic, since their substantive jaws readily accommodated the newly enlarged teeth. But as humans controlled fire, learned to cook, became cooperative, and developed hunting techniques and an accompanying armamentarium of cutting implements, the requirement for robust dentition diminished. We were nevertheless stuck with the legacy of “a mouth full of large teeth.”
. . .
One requires no better evidence of our design’s lack of metaphysical oversight than the absurd configuration of our esophagus and trachea—so near each other as to invite trouble. A benign creator would surely have designed a respiratory system in a way that did not leave us in perpetual fear of choking. But once again this apparently bizarre arrangement results both from our evolutionary origins—the lungs began as an offshoot of the digestive system—and from the requirement for a descended larynx. This “clunky anatomical fault” may give us a fright every time a “hot dog takes a wrong turn at the intersection,” as Mr. Bezzerides writes, but it also facilitated the origin of human speech.
. . .
. . . , he has provided us with a timely reminder that we, as a species, may be outgrowing our evolutionary history and the biology we are constructed from. The emerging technology of genome writing may offer an opportunity to take human design back to first principles.
For the full review, see:
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date May 31, 2021, and has the title “BOOKSHELF; ‘Evolution Gone Wrong’ Review: Our Fallible Bodies.”)
The book under review is:
Bezzerides, Alex. Evolution Gone Wrong: The Curious Reasons Why Our Bodies Work (or Don’t). Toronto, Canada: Hanover Square Press, 2021.
Longshoreman Union Reduces Efficiency of American Ports
(p. A15) Global supply chains are buckling, driving up prices, creating shortages and frustrating consumers.
. . .
One problem is productivity. In Asia, ships are worked 24/7, or 168 hours a week, compared with 16 hours a day, or only 112 hours a week, at Los Angeles-Long Beach. Terminal gates used by truckers to deliver and receive seaborne containers operate only 88 hours a week, vs. 168 in Asia. For larger ships, it takes 24 seconds on average to move a container at the Chinese ports of Shanghai, Qingdao and Yantian, vs. 48 seconds at Los Angeles, according to IHS Markit port-performance data.
. . .
A decades-long history of toxic labor-management relations has led to huge cost increases that discourage operators from expanding work hours, limit their ability to automate terminals, and end in avoidable delays during contract negotiations. Many companies won’t soon forget six months of costly delays at West Coast ports during contract negotiations with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in 2014 and 2015. More than 30 container ships were backed up at anchor off the ports during that episode. Companies will be closely watching the next round of negotiations in 2022.
There is no sign that the labor-management paradigm will change, and a Democratic administration is unlikely to challenge longshoremen’s unions to make compromises.
For the full commentary see:
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date June 2, 2021, and has the same title as the print version.)
Cubans Are Protesting for Freedom from Communism, Not against U.S. Embargo
(p. 10) The Black Lives Matter movement issued a statement on July 14, saying that the unrest resulted from the “U.S. federal government’s inhumane treatments of Cubans.” In an advertisement that ran in The New York Times on July 23, [2021] paid for by the People’s Forum, a nonprofit organization, the signatories, some of whom are American citizens and advocacy groups, framed Cuba’s numerous troubles as reducible to the U.S. trade embargo.
But for anyone following the demonstrations closely, it’s easy to see what the protesters are really calling for. Through the intrepid efforts of independent journalists who labor under constant threat, we have been given an unfiltered glimpse of these calls for freedom — the last thing that the country’s leadership wants anyone to see — as well as the state’s predictably harsh reaction. The government promptly cut off the internet to prevent Cubans from communicating. Authorities detained several hundred Cubans, including minors, while others have been beaten by the police and civilians armed with sticks. The accused have been barred from the right to a lawyer and subjected to summary trials.
Some progressive groups argue that Cubans are protesting food and medicine shortages caused by the U.S. trade embargo. This interpretation falsely claims that the embargo makes it impossible to obtain food and medicine, even though the United States created an exception to its trade embargo of Cuba in 2000 to allow food and medicine sales and sells millions of dollars’ worth of food to the country, including grain and protein consumed by Cuban households.
. . .
Both the Cuban government and progressives are complicit in their disregard for Cubans’ right to their own opinions and aspirations. We Cubans are used to misguided perceptions of what life in Cuba is really like. Fidel Castro promised a more prosperous country, a nation where all Cubans could live in dignity and true equality. But his bait-and-switch revolution delivered an educated people that in 60 years have been able to elect only three presidents. A cultivated people that have no access to public debate and participation.
The Cuban people are tired of Communism and broken promises. For the first time, in more than 50 cities and towns throughout the island, they took to the streets to demand change. They have been told that it is unchangeable, but they are asking for the right to alter the conditions of their lives. They want more than an end to the embargo.
They should have the right to create a society by and for themselves. Even if their specific aspirations disappoint the utopian views of some foreign progressives.
For the full commentary, see:
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed year, added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Aug. 7, 2021, and has the title “Cubans Want Much More Than an End to the U.S. Embargo.”)
Subsidy of “Thriving” Chip Industry Is “Inexcusable”
(p. A16) Consider this recent summary, by the Cato Institute’s Scott Lincicome, of the healthy state of America’s semiconductor industry: “The United States is also a top-five global exporter of semiconductors and related equipment, shipping almost $47 billion of those goods in 2019. These and other data led the SIA [Semiconductor Industry of America] to conclude in its 2020 State of the U.S. Semiconductor Industry report that ‘the semiconductor manufacturing base in the United States remains on solid footing.’”
“The SIA also reports that the U.S. industry has ‘nearly half’ of all global semiconductor sales—a market share that has been steady (ranging from the mid‐40s to low 50s) since the late 1990s—and is the top seller in every major regional market, including China. Sales by U.S. semiconductor firms also grew from $76.7 billion in 1999 to $192.8 billion in 2019—a compound annual growth rate of almost 5%.”
“Beyond output and sales, the U.S. semiconductor industry has been a global leader in capital spending (capex) and R&D.”
Subsidies are always suspect, but when showered on industries that are thriving, they are beyond doubt inexcusable. What further proof do we need to conclude that politicians cannot be trusted to allocate resources wisely?
For Boudreaux’s full letter to the editor, see:
(Note: the online version of the letter to the editor has the date May 31, 2021, and has the same title as the print version.)
Men Are More Likely to Risk Their Lives for Others
(p. A15) “T” does what all superb popular science must do: It entertains as it educates.
. . .
Ultimately, “T” is a vigorous defense of the scientific method itself. Ms. Hooven summarizes: “Multiple independent sources of evidence can combine to strongly support a hypothesis, whether it’s about the cause of a rattle in your car, why your soufflé has collapsed, or why someone blocked you on Twitter. It’s just like that in science.”
. . .
. . . she’s emphatic that high T levels do not lead inexorably to rape and murder; mountains of data disprove this fallacy. She also gives testosterone its due: Men are far more likely “to put their lives on the line for others, and are massively overrepresented in the most dangerous occupations.” She lauds the men who protected her while she conducted fieldwork in the jungles; heroism, for her, thrives at the molecular level.
For the full review, see:
Hamilton Cain. “The Hormone of the Hour.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, July 13, 2021): A15.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date July 12, 2021, and has the title “‘T’ Review: Hormone of the Hour.”)
The book under review is:
Hooven, Carole. T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone That Dominates and Divides Us. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2021.
Firms That Discriminate Earn Lower Profits
(p. B1) Economists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Chicago this week unveiled a vast discrimination audit of some of the largest U.S. companies. Starting in late 2019, they sent 83,000 fake job applications for entry-level positions at 108 companies — most of them in the top 100 of the Fortune 500 list, and (p. B6) some of their subsidiaries.
. . .
(p. B6) In the study, applicants’ characteristics — like age, sexual orientation, or work and school experience — varied at random. Names, however, were chosen purposefully to ensure applications came in pairs: one with a more distinctive white name — Jake or Molly, say — and the other with a similar background but a more distinctive Black name, like DeShawn or Imani.
. . . : On average, applications from candidates with a “Black name” get fewer callbacks than similar applications bearing a “white name.”
. . .
All told, for every 1,000 applications received, the researchers found, white candidates got about 250 responses, compared with about 230 for Black candidates. But among one-fifth of companies, the average gap grew to 50 callbacks. Even allowing that some patterns of discrimination could be random, rather than the result of racism, they concluded that 23 companies from their selection were “very likely to be engaged in systemic discrimination against Black applicants.”
. . .
“Discriminatory behavior is clustered in particular firms,” the researchers wrote. “The identity of many of these firms can be deduced with high confidence.”
The researchers also identified some overall patterns. For starters, discriminating companies tend to be less profitable, a finding consistent with the proposition by Gary Becker, who first studied discrimination in the workplace in the 1950s, that it is costly for firms to discriminate against productive workers.
For the full story, see:
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 29, 2021, and has the title “Who Discriminates in Hiring? A New Study Can Tell.”)
The economic study summarized in the passages quoted above is: