Book: Freakonomics

Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
12/4/06

Thought provoking book that asks:
1. What do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers have in common (they cheat, on tests and in competition to help themselves out)
2. How is the Ku Klux Klan like a group of real estate agents (they new some secrets and kept them, and when it got out, things went down the tubes)
3. Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? (Don’t make much money, pyramid scheme)
4. Where have the criminals gone? (Legalized abortion reduced the disenfranchised population in the 70’s
5. What’s in a baby’s name? (They get tied to culture that the child is raised in, correlated, and the rich pick the names of the future and other emulate)

The idea is simple; apply economic principals to things that don’t usually get economic treatment. Given enough research, and also a large data set, think test scores for all California’s 7h graders, things can be correlated back to a simple explanation. Applications are everywhere and most puzzles of everyday life can be quickly solved if one takes the time and though to truly consider human nature.

Book: Catch 22

Catch 22, Joseph Heller
10/24/06

Yosarian wasn’t crazy, it was everyone else. I suppose you are either someone who agrees, or you’re not. The Catch 22 is of course the military clause that won’t let you go home from the war because you’re crazy, but won’t allow you to stay either. And then you have all the folks working the military system simply because it is workable.

The satire that is Catch 22’s take on the military is as true as the day it was written, it also taps into the frustration of “WHY?” that anyone who has every been deployed will understand, at times heartbreaking, but ever, unexplainably, military.