Monday Classes & Board Review Cancelled

Tri-7 Wk8 Still Holding at Day 431

I continued to check out another chapter from a book called Freakonomics which, I believe was on the New York Times best-seller list at one time. Here is as best as I can remember what I understand from a chapter dealing with the crime rate in the United States. It seems the crime rate had peaked in 1990 and forecast for subsequent years were bleak and thought to continue to rise. Many politicians had their own reasons for why the crime rate actually went down after 1990 but, when examined by economist, those reasons could only explain about 50% of the decline since 1990.

The economist reasoning started with Romania and the execution of the Romanian President, Nicolae and his wife on December 25, 1989 following a revolution and a hasty two hour court proceeding. Back in the fall of 1966 Nicolae issued a decree outlawing abortions which caused the birthrates to double the following year and, an ultimate rise in crime leading up to the time Nicolae was executed.

The economist wondered if the opposite thing might have happened in the United States with the passage of Roe vs Wade back in 1973 which made abortion legal nationwide. The notion was that unwanted births were decreased so that by the time those births would have otherwise reached their prime ages for crime, they simply no longer existed because they were never born in the first place. There was some interesting data that went along w/ the supposition such as the 5 states which allowed abortion before the passage of Roe v Wade in 1973 showed a decrease in crime prior to the 1990 nationwide decline based on the number of years prior to 1973 that those states legalized abortions.

Some other stats cited where that in states where abortion was legal and easily obtainable as compared to states where abortion wasn't as readily available - those states showed a 30% difference in crime rates, w/ the more readily available states as having the lower crime rates. Then it was shown that the difference in crime rates (at the time of the study) all occurred in people aged 25 or less or, those people born after Roe v Wade and there was no difference in crime rates of people aged over 25.

Anyway, that's Freakonomics. I'm not quite sure what to think of it all but, it was an interesting diversion from studying.

School was cancelled due to a power outage.

Let's see ...latest update from Logan - We'll be at the Doubletree Hotel tomorrow for 6 1/2 hours of board review and then again on Wednesday from noon until 8 p.m. after having classes from 7:20 to 11. ....

hmmmm, there go more patient appointments .....oh well, I guess we do what we can do. I have to at least try.