Kieran Healy’s Weblog Sociology and other distractions

Take the Money! Open the Box!

Brad DeLong wonders why Dan Weintraub seems least inclined to support the candidate for Governeror of California about whom most is known. On Dan’s own admission, McClintock and Simon are liars, Schwarzenneger is an unknown quantity and Bustamente has a known program that at least holds together. And yet Dan leans towards McClintock (whom he […]

Cosmic Inevitability

Just read “E.T. and God,” an article by Paul Davies in the current Atlantic Monthly about what would happen to religion if extraterrestrial life of any sort were discovered. The author tends to slide about between that question and the narrower issue of what would happen to the theologies of the major world religions, […]

Conference Blues

Actually, more like Conference Rock’n’Roll. The American Sociological Association’s annual meeting got off to a decent start last night, with a performance in the main ballroom by a band called Thin Vita. It’s made up of, amongst others, John Sutton (guitar/vocals) and current ASA President Bill Bielby (bass). So I think Bill is pretty well […]

Power Outages

Just catching the news about the power outage in New York and—reportedly—also in a number of major cities along the east coast, up into Canada and even into the midwest. I wonder why this is happening, especially if the early reports of outages in other major cities are accurate. Apart from the obvious (but I […]

Comings and Goings

So I’m working away this afternoon (not blogging, no sir), getting ready to make a quick trip to Atlanta for the American Sociological Association’s annual meetings and this guy comes in the door…

I know this sounds like the start of a bad joke, but in fact it was Tim Dunlop, who happens to be in […]

Bad Movie

Amitai Etzioni has an odd post about the supposedly pernicious effects of The Matrix on impressionable young minds. It of four fans of the movie (and presumably its atrocious sequel) who committed violent crimes and talked afterwards about their obsession with the film. One guy shot his parents to death with a 12-gauge shotgun. “[Josh] […]