99%

I was about fourteen and good at math. My mother, a psychologist, was using me to do all the stats for for her research papers as statistics had penetrated the social sciences.  Since then the doctoral hierarchy in humanities has shifted towards those good at numbers. Statistics provide these arts a scientific gloss. And penetrated the popular culture. Now most people describe social and human  situations and conditions in terms of percentages or other simplified statistical terms. The deeper understanding gets lost. Due to misunderstanding or manipulation, even the simpler explanations associated with the statistics are more often wrong. Less than 50% right!   SEMIDOCTS

OWS! welcome to NY politics.

Occupy Wall Street was so busy dealing with the problem of protecting their tents and encampment at Zucotti that they forgot developing a mission, a working idea. Of course, politics in New York City are always  about  real estate.

Green Markets

Green markets are popping up everywhere, but mostly in gentrified neighborhoods. Selling supposedly organic veggies. At higher prices. Ugly tomatoes. Small peddlers dressed as farmers.  Potatoes so wrinkled I would not know how to peel. Insufficiently  baked muffins. And people buy them. Not for what they are but for what they mean, Occupy Wall Street tents are not unlike these markets.  They seem to mean.