University of Michigan Press Blog

The Controversy of "The Cult"

The University of Michigan Press was privileged to have a featured book review in the inaugural edition of the Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics; the book: THE CULT OF STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE: How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives, by Stephen T. Ziliak and Deirdre N. McCloskey, about how researchers in a broad spectrum of fields, from agronomy to zoology, employ "testing" that doesn't test and "estimating" that doesn't estimate.  

The review itself, however, was an attack--not on the quality of the book, but on the very theories that underlie it, and represents the fundamental "unsafe" but important territory that these two authors have dared to tread. Fortunately, EJPE was kind enough to publish a response from the authors right on the next page about why this is important, who actually cares, who should care, and how to navigate the many traps of "the substantive/statistical distinction" that readers (and reviewers) often fall into...

EXCERPTS:

UMP Titles Named 2009 Michigan Notable Books

The following titles have been named Library of Michigan's 2009 Michigan Notable Books.

	Looking for Hickories: The Forgotten Wildness of the Rural Midwest by Tom Springer A masterfully written collection that establishes a new voice for the spirit of the upper Midwest and Michigan and offers a fresh look at the landscape as well as the everyday lives of the people who make up the region's small communities.
	Ninety Years Crossing Lake Michigan: The History of the Ann Arbor Car Ferries by Grant Brown, Jr. An illustrated book about the visionary, risky, and influential business of transporting loaded railroad cars across Lake Michigan.
	The Toledo War: The First Michigan-Ohio Rivalry by Don Faber How a thin strip of land between the state of Ohio and Michigan started a war.
	"Jiffy" A Family Tradition: Mixing Business and Old-Fashioned Values by Cynthia Furlong Reynolds (distributed by the University of Michigan Press) The story of the internationally renowned Chelsea Milling Company---a trailblazer in the packaged-food industry.

From the State of Michigan website:
"The Michigan Notable Books program annually selects 20 of the most notable books published in the year. The selections are reflective of Michigan's diverse ethnic, historical, literary, and cultural experience."

Jackie Ormes Named Best Book by Village Voice

Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist by Nancy Goldstein has been named a Best Book of 2008 by the Village Voice.

"Jackie (nee Zelda) Ormes created four different newspaper-cartoon series that were nationally syndicated in Black American newspapers from 1937 to 1956. Her politically astute, elegantly drawn, and predominantly female characters were a bracing collective to the "coon and mammy" caricatures promulgated by many white cartoonists during those years. Ormes's hitherto underexposed work is celebrated in this lavishly illustrated career biography." Carol Cooper

Jackie Ormes has also been named an American Library Association Booklist Top 10 Biography of the Year.

Read more about the book at www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=150236

Obama's Job Policy

by guest blogger Lanse Minkler, author of the new release Integrity and Agreement:Economics When Principles Also Matter    ->LOOK INSIDE

President-elect Obama’s campaign pledge to create 2 million jobs through public investment in infrastructure looks like a political promise that might actually be kept.  Apparently, FDR’s New Deal approach provides the inspiration.  While many will fear the reach of this new program, and especially its cost, I am among those human rights advocates who say that it will not go far enough.

 

In 1944 FDR proposed a second bill of rights.  Motivated by the experience of the Great Depression, the goal of the second bill was to ensure that no one suffer from want because “a necessitous man is not a free man.”  Real freedom, not equality, was the goal.  That kind of freedom, the kind that assures human dignity, also  underlies economic rights as found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948 and signed by virtually all nations of the world.  All humans have the right to an adequate standard of living, secured by the right to employment and income supports for those unable to work.  That means that all those who would like to work are entitled to it, and the government should provide a job as a last resort.  But because the public works program envisioned by the new administration reflects a policy choice rather than a legally protected program to secure the right to employment (and thus the right to an adequate standard of living), it does not go far enough.  Policies can be changed with the whims of politicians, rights cannot.

A List of Actual Ideas for a New America

Imagining America

From: Democracy for America, group blog for Change For Louisville

Written by: Thomas Janowski on Nov 1, 2008 2:44 PM EDT

Linked to groups: dfaROCHESTER

This morning I finished reading a book by Herbert J. Gans.  The title is Imagining America in 2033: How The Country Put Itself Together After Bush. [Look Inside HERE]

Some would probably dismiss this book as nothing but a wild fantasy.  I'm also sure the release of this book was meant to correspond with the fresh start America needs and will get on election day.  And yes, I'll admit that mainstream America will think many, if not most, of the ideas presented are too wild for passage into law or policy.  But isn't the dream we all have for a better future worth examining some new, fresh and wild ideas?

I'm going to randomly present a list of ideas from the book--with and without explanation.  So here goes:

-Make it against the law to outsource the production of goods/services that were developed via government grants, tax breaks, subsidies.

-Reforestation projects that are combined with windmill farms.

-Develop broad based international hunt for terrorists that is less likely to kill civilians.

-FICA tax should be progressive and without a cap.

-There should be a national consumption tax on luxury items.

-There should be an Obscene Profits Tax on corporations.

-Work with corporations who need government help and fight those corporations that work against the best interests of Americans.

BUY "IMAGINING AMERICA" NOW WITH 30% DISCOUNT: CLICK HERE

-A wealth tax based on whether people/companies derived their profits from government research grants or were helped with government tax breaks or subsidies.

-End fearmongering associated with the war on terror.  Get to a place where Americans are assured everything is being done to protect them and then don't think/worry about it anymore.

-Cabinet members should include blue collar, working class people.

-Heal the economy.

-Small Classroom Initiative.

-Nurse-Doctor (ND) program--this creates a new class of medical professional who would offer a first line of medical care and would make house calls and would be salaried.

-Medicare becomes America's universal health insurance and includes VA services and Medicaid.

-Economic Justice--collecting billions of dollars from those who have evaded taxes

-Legislate against pre-emptive war. 

-Assume war is unnecessary until proven otherwise.

-Any decision for war would have to done democratically.

-End funding for missile defense system.

-50 mile per hour speed limits--studies have shown the most fuel efficient speed is around 47 mph.

-Equality would give way to Fairness.

-There will be oil wars.

-Welfare would become 3 programs--Survival Aid, Parenting Help and Escape(to get people off assistance)

-There will be a general decline of religion as a political force.

-Birth control technology will nearly eliminated abortions and therefore the division between the two sides.

-Weight tax on cars.

-Community contrustion would bring living, working and shopping all within walking distances.

-Talent testing--education would be based on a student's strengths.

-Political Education for Democracy.

-UN Observers for troubled election districts.

-House of Representatives would have the option of "NO CONFIDENCE" votes about the President.

-Time for a new Constitutution?  An amended Constitution?

-Money does not equal free speech in political campaigns.

-Supreme Court would be made up of 3 Dems, 3 Reps and 3 Indies.

BUY "IMAGINING AMERICA" NOW WITH 30% DISCOUNT: CLICK HERE

***UPDATE*** on the 893rd Regiment of Deployed

NEW TRANSFER ORDERS: An Update On the 893rd
By Susan M. Ross, co-author of Deployed
Just after the initial printing of Deployed went to press, a core group of reservists from the 893rd Army Reserve Military Police Company received new transfer orders. In conjunction with this transfer, they were to ready themselves for another deployment that would be served alongside new team, squad, and platoon members of an entirely different military police company. With the military short on manpower and stretched thin over two protracted war fronts, multiple warzone deployments have become a standard for reserve and active duty personnel.

The specter of military uncertainty, so prevalent in so many of their comments throughout Deployed, no longer hovered just below the surface. Written in black and white military orders was the news that their service to the nation, extraordinary as it had already been, was not yet complete. The Bush Administration had geared up for a surge of force on the ground in Iraq, and former members of the 893rd would be among these “fresh” troops returning for further engagement.