Good reading

This morning I read an interesting article in the NYT Magazine on how to get doctors to wash their hands. The piece is written by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, authors of Freakonomics, and in it they tell the story of how one hospital ultimately managed to increase handwashing among doctors from 65% to nearly 100%. The key turned out to be having the doctors put their palms on a culture plate and then turning the resulting images into a screen saver that was put on every computer in the hospital.

I was intrigued by the social psychology bent of the approach and article, so I went to Dubner and Levitt's website and read another very interesting article about bagels and human nature. I've become more and more interested in recent years about the power of economics, especially when it incorporates a social science perspective, and I really wish I'd taken more courses in it while I was in college. Anyway, those two articles really piqued my interest, so off to the library I went and picked up a copy of Freakonomics, along with The Tipping Point (which I own, but cannot find), and a play by Tom Stoppard. Time to dig into some good reading and get my brain going again!

The interview everyone is talking about

Bill Clinton appeared on Fox News today in a one-on-one interview with Chris Wallace. If you haven't seen it yet, here's the first part (which is what everyone is talking about), here's the second part, and here's the complete transcript. The Right is saying Clinton went crazy; the Left is saying he gave Wallace and Fox News the smackdown they so greatly deserve. You know what? They're both right. Take a look at the very beginning of the interview:

WALLACE: Mr. President, welcome to Fox News Sunday.

CLINTON: Thanks.

WALLACE: In a recent issue of The New Yorker you say, quote,

I’m 60 years old and I damn near died, and I’m worried about how many lives I can save before I do die.

Is that what drives you in your effort to help in these developing countries?

CLINTON: Yes, I really — but I don’t mean — that sounds sort of morbid when you say it like that. I mean, I actually…

WALLACE: That’s how you said it.

CLINTON: Yes, but the way I said it, the tone in which I said it was actually almost whimsical and humorous. That is, this is what I love to do. It is what I think I should do.

From the opening question, it's clear Clinton is already feeling defensive... which is totally understandable being that he's a Democrat appearing on Fox News, but it does beg the question as to why he agreed to the interview in the first place. Clinton spends most of the interview responding to a pointed question from Wallace about why he didn't do more to go after bin Laden and Al Qaida when he was president. Wallace gives Clinton a couple opportunities to move on, but by then Clinton is so worked up, he insists on continuing to make his point that politicians and media organizations on the Right have been disingenuous in their attempts to blame him for failing to protect America.

I find it telling that Clinton--one of the most intelligent, collected men in politics, if not the world--was so distracted by the highly polarized age in which we live that he was unable to stay focused on talking about the wonderful work he's been doing with the Clinton Global Initiative. Still, he's been able to get Barbara Streisand and Rupert Murdoch to work together to combat global warming, which is absolutely incredible (check out the video or the transcript from Clinton's appearance on The Daily Show, complete with tons of links). I get very passionate about politics, but I try to remind myself to focus my energy on common goals that we can all agree on. It's important that some people devote themselves to battling for things like a woman's right to choose, but it's in areas like global heathcare and combatting extreme poverty that we can work together to make some real progress that will improve the lives of millions of people.