BY JAMES TARANTO
Thursday, April 14, 2005 4:12 p.m. EDT
Babies
Having (Fewer) Babies
The Washington Post reports on an interesting new analysis by the National
Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. The campaign, noting that U.S. teen
birthrates fell 30% between 1991 and 2002, calculates that if those rates had
instead remained constant, there would be some 406,000 additional children living
below the federally defined poverty line and some 428,000 living in households
with single mothers.
Since 1991 was exactly 18 years after Roe v. Wade, we got to wondering
if the Roe effect might have something to do with all this. The Roe effect would
predict that the effect of a reduction in birthrates would be greatest in liberal
states, where pregnant teenagers would be more likely to exercise their "right
to privacy" and thus less likely to carry their babies to term. The campaign's
numbers seem to bear this out.
Here, in order, are the 10 states with the biggest percentage
decline in teen birthrates (links for tables in PDF): California,
Maine, Michigan, Alaska, New Hampshire, Washington,
Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Hawaii.
These are the 10 states where the campaign attributes the greatest percentage
improvement in child
poverty rates to a reduction in teen birthrates: Connecticut,
Vermont, Maryland, Michigan, Maine, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Ohio,
California, Massachusetts.
And here's the same list for the improvement in the number of children living
with single mothers: Michigan, Missouri,
New Hampshire, Vermont, California, Massachusetts, Delaware, Illinois, Pennsylvania,
Maine.
John Kerry carried nine of the top 10 states in each category, which is remarkable
considering he won only 19 states overall. (The District of Columbia, if it
were a state, would place 10th on the first list and first on the other two
lists.) Thus it would appear that there is a correlation between the encouraging
social trends the campaign notes and relatively slow population growth in Democratic-leaning
states.
One other thing strikes us as odd about the whole effort: Isn't the focus on
teen pregnancy slightly misplaced? After all, lots of 18- and 19-year-old
women are mature enough to marry and start families, and there's no reason to
stigmatize them for doing so. A national campaign against unwed teen
pregnancy would make more sense.
Growing
Pains
Three and a half years after Afghanistan's liberation from the Taliban, Kabul's
economy is booming, and real estate values are soaring. Leave it to the BBC
to find the dark cloud around this silver lining:
Afghanistan's internationally renowned charity for street children, Aschiana,
survived the Afghan wars of the 1990s and the Taleban era.
However, the free market economics of Kabul's post-war boom now seem a more
potent enemy than rockets and bombs.
Aschiana, which means "the nest" and provides support, food, education and
a refuge to 10,000 street children, faces the closure of its main centre in
Kabul.
It is the victim of rocketing rents and land prices rather than artillery.
The charity's compound on Char Rahi Malik Asghar, which it has occupied since
1997, has been sold by its owner to an international company.
A five-star hotel will be built on the site.
We take the point that prosperity can entail hardships and costs. But it seems
perverse to imply that poverty is preferable because it is more hospitable to
charity.
Stephanie
P., Class Warrior
Tomorrow is tax day, and in case you're not already annoyed enough, here's a
quote from a Christian Science Monitor piece on people who avoid taxes by working
for cash:
Not reporting her income has made Stephanie P., who works "off the books"
for $10 an hour at a real estate office in New York, feel guilty. "I feel
a little hypocritical," says the college student, "because I favor a bigger
government in terms of more spending on social programs and healthcare, but
here I am not paying an income tax."
Meanwhile, the Associated
Press has what sounds like good economic news: "Gas Prices Force Consumers
to Spend Less." We're not sure how this is possible, especially since gas
prices have been going up lately, but there you are.
Hey, We've Got One!
"Perhaps you can help us with our collection. We're keeping tabs on
various examples of Republicans lashing out at financier and philanthropist
George Soros using anti-Semitic code language. We're calling it The Tony Blankley
Project. Your assistance is, of course, appreciated."--Josh
Marshall, April 13, 2005
"Malaysia's Prime Minster blames his country's problems on the machinations
of Jewish speculators--the reaction of most observers is skepticism, even
ridicule. But even the paranoid have people out to get them. Little by little,
over the past few years, the figure of the evil speculator has reemerged.
George Soros played a definite role--though probably not a decisive one--in
the forced devaluation of Britain's pound sterling in 1992."--Paul Krugman,
New
York Times magazine, Nov. 8, 1998
We don't know if Krugman is a Republican or not, but he's definitely a former
Enron adviser, which is just as bad.
This
Just In
"Tom DeLay Flap Produces Hyperbole"--headline, Associated Press, April 14
Problem Solved
"U.S. Executions by Lethal Injection May Not Be Humane"--headline,
HealthDay
News, April 14
"Experts Say Ending Feeding Can Lead to a Gentle Death"--headline,
New
York Times, March 20
Does
He Do Windows?
"Ruppersberger Forgoes Senate To Finish Up House Work"--headline,
Washington Post, April 14
What
Would We Do Without Watchdogs?
"Pentagon's War Spending Hard to Track--Watchdog"--headline, Reuters,
April 13
Why
Is This News? Did He Bite a Dog?
"Man Found Dead in Cemetery"--headline, News-Dispatch (Michigan City,
Ind.), April 13
Cheer
Up, Japan, It's Almost Friday
"Japan Down for 4th Straight Day"--headline, CNN.com, April 14
'Cat
Got Your Tongue?' 'No, My Finger.'
Here's the latest development in the case of Anna Ayala's found finger:
Detectives have confirmed one lead they are pursuing: A woman who lost part
of a finger in a Feb. 23 leopard attack at an exotic animal compound at her
home in Pahrump, a rural Nevada town about 60 miles west of Las Vegas.
A lawyer for Sandy Allman, 59, said his client believes the fingertip Ayala
said she found belongs to her.
"She thinks it's her finger," lawyer Philip Sheldon, said from his office
in Encino, Calif. "She wants to participate in any DNA testing and any final
resolution of that matter."
Ayala is from Vegas, and the hospital says it can't account for Allman's digit.
But there's a problem: "Sheldon said Allman realizes the piece of finger
Ayala claims to have found in her chili was twice as long as the one Allman
lost." We're still betting on that guy
from Illinois.
A
Bad Sign
Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass reports that a reader sent him a disturbing
photo of a road sign:
Here's what was on the sign photographed by Scott Broehl.
First, there was the IDOT [Illinois Department of Transportation] logo, and
"ADOPT A HIGHWAY" in big letters. Then the name of a fellow named Kevin. I'm
withholding the last name because we couldn't reach him. Given what the organization
under his name stands for, I think you'll understand.
The name of the organization that adopted the highway was also in big letters.
Here it is.
"NAMBLA INC."
Then it said, "KEEP ILLINOIS CLEAN."
We suppose it was inevitable. As About.com
notes, courts have already forced the state of Missouri to allow the Ku Klux
Klan to adopt a highway. Though in this case, we can always hope that Kevin
what's-his-name belongs to the North
American Marlon Brando Look Alikes.
Meet
the Beetles
What do George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have in common? "Each
has a slime-mold beetle named in his honor," according to a Cornell University
press release:
Two former Cornell University entomologists who recently had the job of
naming 65 new species of slime-mold beetles named three species that are new
to science in the genus Agathidium for members of the U.S. administration.
They are A. bushi Miller and Wheeler, A. cheneyi Miller and
Wheeler and A. rumsfeldi Miller and Wheeler.
The entomologists also named some of the new species after their wives and
a former wife, Pocahontas, Hernan Cortez, the Aztecs, the fictional "Star
Wars" villain Darth Vader ("who shares with A. vaderi a broad, shiny,
helmetlike head"), Frances Fawcett (their scientific illustrator) and the
Greek words for "ugly" and "having prominent teeth" and the Latin word for
"strange." Many of the other names they used for the recently described beetles
were derived from various geographic locations, such as California, Georgia
and a few states in Mexico, and for various distinguishing features they discovered
on the beetles.
The decision to name three slime-mold beetles after Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld,
however, didn't have anything to do with physical features, says Quentin Wheeler,
a professor of entomology and of plant biology at Cornell for 24 years until
last October, but to pay homage to the U.S. leaders. "We admire these leaders
as fellow citizens who have the courage of their convictions and are willing
to do the very difficult and unpopular work of living up to principles of
freedom and democracy rather than accepting the expedient or popular," says
Wheeler, who named the beetles and wrote the recently published monograph
describing the new slime-mold beetle species while a professor at Cornell.
Who says all of academia is anti-American?
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Ed Lasky, Christopher Marciano, Robert Clucas, Steve Goss, Steve Hilton, Jeremy
Winer, Don Hubschman, Mark Hudgens, Scott Miller, Patrick Bedwell, Samuel Walker,
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