Freakonomics

Today I went for a ten mile bike ride and followed it up with a two mile walk. The first five miles of the bike ride were with DD in the trailer behind me, and the walk was with her in the jogger. The bike ride felt good, as did the first mile of the walk. When I turned around and headed back, though, I really felt the burn. The mile out is mostly a gradual downhill, which means coming back it's uphill, and after the workout I'd already done, my body did complain a bit. DD wanted me to sing to her as I climbed the hill, but I discovered that singing takes a lot more oxygen than talking, so that didn't last long.

We were going to load up the refuse bin today, but just when we were ready to start, we got hit by this awesome thunder, lightning, and rain storm. It was also really windy, and lasted a lot longer than I was expecting. By the time it ended, everything outdoors was well-soaked. Since we didn't get the bin loaded and the back yard cleaned up, we now have lots of work to do the next two days before various siblings start arriving.

I finally got my copy of 'Freakonomics' back. My dad had finished it quickly, then my mom started reading it, not realizing that I hadn't finished it yet. Luckily the other copy I requested from the library came in, so we each have one now. It really is quite an interesting book, with the correlations that are drawn out of stacks and stacks of data. One that I thought was very interesting was the effect of abortion being legalized.

Basically, because abortion was legalized, more women were able to have abortions. The women most likely to have abortions were single, very young, and poor. If they hadn't aborted their babies, those babies would have been raised in a neglectful environment (they weren't wanted to begin with), that was below the poverty line, would have dropped out of school, become involved in drugs and gangs, and would have contributed to the rise in crime. By the early 1990's, crime had risen so much that experts were predicting that it would only get worse and that where they were right now would soon be considered the good days. Instead, crime started dropping rapidly, against all predictions. The correlation here is that because those babies who would have most likely ended up violent criminals were aborted, there was fewer people in that demographic, so fewer crimes were being committed. Very interesting thought. It goes against the grain morally, abortion is murder, after all, but it does make sense that that would be the end result.

This also brings to mind the argument of allowing people to have children when they can't/won't/don't care for them. We all have our agency, but it's really hard to see people having child after child when they don't care for the ones they have and can't afford to care for them properly, and in many cases, downright neglect them. I have a hard time with that. I know we will someday have to face the consequences of our actions, but it's hard to see others being affected negatively by those actions now, especially when those others are children. It's almost enough to make me an advocate for sterilization of unfit parents. From a legal perspective, where do you draw the line between what's acceptable and what's not, especially when it relates to having babies? I remember reading an article a few years ago about a women who was 28 or 29 (I forget which), and had just given birth to her tenth child. She was not married, a drug user, and all her kids had been taken by the state, including this most recent one. She was quoted in this article as saying she was going to keep having children till the state let her keep one. How messed up is that? And look at the burden she's put on society by neglecting her kids: the state had to take them and put them in foster care and foot the bill for everything. If you want to keep your kids, get clean, get a job, and become a contributing member of society, just like the rest of us. Aaaarrrgh! Ok, enough of me on my soapbox.

On a brighter note, DD thought the thunder was the clouds growling, so every time she heard some thunder, she'd growl at the sky!