Rating: Four Butts on the Couch
So it took me two days to polish the Freakonomics book; found it an entertaining and enlightening read. This book is in the genre of socio-economics but is written in a way you can breeze through it and have several a-ha moments and a couple of the chapters I actually read twice for total comprehension of the cases brought forth. It covers an array of topics such as "what's in the baby name?" Their research on California birth rates indicate that a name uber-popular today in the upper classes, will eventually migrate to the lower classes in 10-15 years time and that the name in and of itself may not necessarily hurt your destiny but is more of a reflection of your parents and their education level (doubt too many people who read this book go on to name their baby girl Brittany). Also enjoyed the parenting chapter and what type of parenting attributes make for kids who do better in school and the results are not as obvious as you would think. In the end of the book, they have a Q&A section with the authors and for every 10 topics brought forth, about 3 turn into papers, and if they are lucky one will be published. So I have some suggestions for future consideration:
1) Why is it that when I go to get my driver's licence or tags, the dregs of humanity are sitting right there with me. Do people in my zip code not drive?
2) If you live in Arkansas, are devoutly religious and have 19 children, what is the propensity that one of more of those children will hate your guts one day?
3) Would people do better on their New Years Resolution diet if Girl Scout cookies didn't come out in February? Would a November launch of said cookies make someone more likely to stay on their New Year's Diet longer and/or would the Girl Scout cookies even sell better if they came out during a feeding frenzy time of year?
Okay, so that's only three and statistically will likely not be covered in any of their future books, but inquiring minds want to know! I'm on next to Super Freakonomics.
a resolution
21 hours ago
No need to do any research on #3. Of course they would sell better in 4th quarter because who cares about a diet then. I for one cut back on Girl Scout Cookies this year and had to walk past all those cute little faces outside the grocery store. I gave them a $5 donation and told them to give the cookies to whomever they chose. The lemon cookies were shouting "Eat Me" as I walked away. For one split second I had a moment of weakeness and almost turned around to get my box. My husband, who has a much weaker will than I do, came home with a dozen boxes of Samosas. I will not touch one of them!!! Said he couldn't resist my little niece begging him to buy. My response: "One box would have been fine, why 12!!"..His response: "But she is soooo cute". AARGH!!!!
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