Jumping off the Gerbil Wheel

Hi everyone. Let's start with the best news of all: on May 17 our first niece, Gianna -- her parents are Jeanine's brother, Chris, and Christine -- was born. I can't wait to meet her ... c'mon oil, keep ticking down!

Has it really been 6 weeks since I posted? Sam says that for a blog to work, it must be updated at least once a week. So I'll try that pace for the rest of the summer (cancel your automatically generated e-mails now ...) But there was nothing I could do ... the "white paper" that I wrote for the ABC This Week debate nearly finished me off and put me completely behind on everything else I needed to get done, including checking the page proofs for the Minnesota in the 1930s/Contract Clause case book. (And btw, I can safely say that it's hard to move the needle on a national policy discussion, such as we even have rational national discussions; not one of the 349 comments on Paul Krugman's blog entry about the debate mentioned my paper ... and the debate itself was proof that the emperor has no clothes. I think George Will needs a basic reading list in economic history.) Luckily for all of you, that's about all I can remember from the last couple months of the semester -- in fact the entire academic year is now just a hazy blur of copy edits, page proofs, indexes, etc. Of course it's not just me -- this video shows how Jeanine and I feel a lot of the time. But at least we're on it together:

Anyway, goodbye to all that. The books are all but out. Here's the unofficial (and I dare say very cool -- thanks University Press of Kansas) cover for the MN one:



Stay tuned for the fantastic cover that Chicago designed for the State and the Stork, as well. This book is going to be so huge, however, that I don't want to give a head start to some enterprising criminal who would undoubtedly hack into my copy editor's computer, cobble together a pirated book, and start selling it for serious cashish.

Anyway, now I'm in Salt Lake trying to get off the gerbil wheel. This should be the best summer since I started grad school. My back has pretty much healed **, I'm learning to love being online only 4 hours a day as opposed to 12, and I've already tripled for 2012 my 10-year moving average of golf rounds per year. Jeanine is even adjusting to the strange fact that I'm not on edge around the clock.

** Note: this is an unofficial and inconclusive comment, not to be interpreted as disrespectful to the back gods. I don't want to jinx it. Take it from me folks, learn dynamic stretching and how to warm up. But right at the end of the semester I did run my first race since the injury and managed a third place finish (in a weak field). Apparently a back injury and crappy training for two months takes about 90 seconds off my 5k time.

Jeanine and I went to Vegas over Memorial Day. (When in Vegas, we prefer the Suncoast. Thank you Phyllis and Richard!) How did I do? Well, let's just say that the Orioles picked a bad time to go on their first losing streak of the year. But let's also say that if Luke Donald wins the US Open, we're up for the trip. Outside of the casinos, I played golf on the amazing Wolf course with Uncle Richard and the chief of the Paiute nation (playing with the chief meant that we had the first tee time and the whole course in front of us). Yes, I found the water on the first island green hole I've ever played, but, just for the record, the wind was about 30 miles per hour and the ball landed damn close to the hole but then took a giant hop into the drink. We managed to find the best bar in America, too -- the only one I know of with both Carlsberg and Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA on tap. And if you ever find yourself in Vegas, ask us for a Thai restaurant recommendation. Finally, we hiked/ran in the Red Rocks National Conservation Area and learned that you can in fact freeze in Vegas without a long-sleeve shirt. Look ma, a generic doesn't-do-it-justice smartphone picture of dry and rocky western hills:

 

Hangin' with George Stephanopoulos and Paul Krugman

Ok, the title's a bit of an exaggeration. But I was asked by the Miller Center (a political history- and policy-oriented think tank in Charlottesville, VA, where I had a fellowship in olden times) to write the "white paper" for the next in a series of debates on ABCs "This Week" that's coming up this Sunday morning. The subject of the debate is: "Is the Recovery Built to Last?" This is the fourth season of these periodic "This Week" debates organized by the Miller Center (the first three aired on PBS). In the last debate, for example, Paul Ryan and George Will squared off against Barney Frank and Robert Reich on the proper size and role of government.

Here's the line-up for this Sunday:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, moderator

CARLY FIORINA, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard

JENNIFER GRANHOLM, former governor of Michigan

PAUL KRUGMAN, Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist

ERIC SCHMIDT, executive chairman of Google

DAVID WALKER, former Comptroller General

GEORGE WILL, Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator

My paper's been sent to the panelists. I'm realistic about how much they'll read/use it, of course, but I'm hoping Stephanopoulos will nudge discussion toward a couple of my points. You can click on the paper at the top right of the "This Week" webpage.

I hope you've found this a more interesting entry than the one I could have written about two things that just won't relent: my over-the-top-amount-of-work semester (next stop, checking the page proofs and index on the Minnesota book) and my back injury ...

Covering my Bases

Hey everyone -- I'd really love your help picking some potential cover images for my book coming out this fall on the history of US population debates (called The State and the Stork) that I can suggest to the press. The book focuses on anxieties about US population growth, so a crowded image of an Indian market is out. Indeed, I'm thinking I want to avoid a picture with a lot of people in it -- which just seems a little hackneyed. You all agree? Plus, a lot of the book is about how population concerns in the US have centered not on fears of true resource exhaustion (or starvation) but on "quality of life" issues, such as crowded national parks, etc. The book also features economists -- and debates about the intersection between population theory and economic growth theory -- but, I was surprised to be told, those concepts apparently don't make for good covers ... Here are some ideas friends have suggested so far (these are approximations, not the actual images I'd use; and for the record I don't own any of these images), and yes, that's Salt Lake and the Wasatch mountains:

 

Of course, maybe I should just go with a picture of me and the Paul Ehrlich (more on that to come?):

I'm in Salt Lake and thrilled to be done with my index (wow, those are more work than I thought) and to see Lydia and Gary and the boys out here. I'm less thrilled to miss physical therapy ...

On Turning 40

Actually I haven't yet, but I thought I'd dispense with this post now rather than in June. Who wants to be mopey on their actual birthday? And why now, besides the obvious -- my books are finally done and I'm about to get tenure but I live apart from Jeanine so I've inevitably been taking stock of my life? First off, I remain on injured reserve, which is making me confront the obvious fact that I may be over the hill athletically (as if I don't already read plenty of studies proving that performance declines after 40, which gives me a chance to plug this great blog). The slowly healing fractured thumb is bad enough, but at least that injury was induced by manly and dangerous rollerskiing, not age. But almost two Saturdays ago now, I injured my back during the 20K xc race at White Pine. Injured as in later that night I was occasionally down for the count with shooting pain. [If anybody knows a good webpage on back pain, please let me know.] This time there wasn't one moment when something snapped -- it just seems that overuse, exacerbated by the slow and brutally cold and windy conditions that day -- caused a disc to get out of whack or screwed up a muscle or whatever. I'm not sure what I have because I'm certainly done with doctors for a while -- my post-insurance emergency room bill for the thumb is over $500. (More on that when the itemized bill that I requested arrives.) Anyway, the crappy thing is that while I injured the back skiing, the only activity that kills right now is running. So at the moment I'm trying to be mature and 40-something, as Jeanine counsels, and wait for it to heal thoroughly before I start again. The Twin Cities marathon in October seems a long way off ...

The second immediate reason I've been thinking about the big 4-0 is that last weekend I went to my friend Chris's 40th-birthday party in New York. Not that I'm complaining about that -- I turned his party into a fantastic long weekend. It's just that walking around NYC wearing a thumb splint and doubled over in back pain on the way to a 40th birthday celebration can make a guy feel old. Thursday night I "surprised" my sister Lydia in White Plains. I may have surprised her by coming to her house that night, but I had stupidly written here that I was coming to the city -- glad to know someone reads my entries to the end -- and between that and Gary suggesting that they spend Sunday, her birthday, in the city, she was pretty much onto me. Friday I had drinks with my grad school friend Ben and Jess at the Half King, my new favorite bar in Chelsea. Then it was off to Brooklyn to see Ray and Young-ah and Charlie:

Our college-era friend Fred joined us for beers, of which several were the strong Belgian variety, which made me a little worse for the wear come Saturday breakfast (if I don't start running soon I'm going to loose all my alcohol tolerance -- I'm convinced the two are connected). Saturday I met up with my Carleton friend Erich, who gave me a tour of the High Line (NYC's new above ground park and walkway).

Saturday night was Chris's party at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station -- a fantastic location and party (thanks Lauren), and it was great to see all of the Dorment generations in one place. (I've been friends with Chris and his parents and sisters since 4th grade.) After the Oyster Bar we stayed in Grand Central and went to the Campbell Apartment, a faux speakeasy in the old office of a railroad executive. A surge of people went there for a drink, but then -- getting back to the 40-something theme -- a surge of people left about 25 minutes later, at about midnight. In other words, after one drink it became "the sitter is expecting me" time. Also notice that 40-somethings have trouble finishing big $17.50 drinks (end of party photo):

Sunday morning I finally got to meet Chris and Lauren's 3 fantastic kids. They're as cute as Charlie (luckily, all my friends' babies have always been equally cute), just much harder to capture on film.

Then finally Sunday afternoon it was time to hang out with Owen and Milo, my nephews (and their parents too). Look ma, art so famous it's become middlebrow! Actually, I thought it was pretty cool to observe how 7- and 9-year-olds respond to art. I thought they would like the 1960s stuff made out of jeeps and license plates, etc., the best, but actually, they loved the classics. Guess beauty is innate. I of course am partial to Munch.

I save the best for last. As a good Keynesian, I did my part to stimulate the economy by buying into Linsanity ... right as it begins to fade. I have a tendency to buy at the top.