So here's the bleg: What are these books? I'm looking for some examples and can't find them. Blue Willow is a terrific book whose title dish beautifully exemplifies Grant McCracken's concept of "displaced meaning," but it has nothing about buying on time. Strawberry Girl is less impressive and also features no repo men. Am I simply imagining these anti-debt morality tales?

Switching light bulbs is an idea that environmentalists have long supported. But getting consumers to embrace change has been slow going.

Banning energy-intensive incandescents "saves consumers money, saves the state money and saves energy,'' said Levine, who calls his measure the "How Many Legislators Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb Act.''

"When a consumer is standing in a store and they're confronted with two different products, they generally opt for the one that is cheaper and the one they've traditionally bought,'' he said. "The problem is: The one they think is cheaper is only cheap at that moment in time. The other one is cheaper over the long run.''

Compact fluorescent bulbs cost several times more than a traditional bulb, but they last 10 times longer. Replacing one bulb that is used four to eight hours a day can save a consumer $4 to $13 a year and $38 to $72 after five years, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

For a different perspective, see my article here. After an unhappy experience with Wal-Mart's compact fluorescents, Megan McArdle sparked a vigorous debate on the subject here and here.

Regardless of the merits of the light bulbs, California legislators are far too eager to write their personal preferences into bans and mandates. (If you want Californians to burn less electricity, put a tax on it or let utilities raise the price. Don't tell them how to allocate the electricity they use.) So I'm reviving a blog series headline from a few years back.

But this is one seriously exploitive contest. There appear to be no prizes--not even a gift subscription or a signed copy of The Elegant Universe--and merely entering the contest gives Discover "exclusive [!!!--vp], royalty-free and irrevocable right and license to edit, reproduce, publish, display, broadcast, stream or otherwise use your video entry, in whole or in part, for any purpose and in any manner or media (including, without limitation, the Internet) throughout the world in perpetuity, and to license others to do so, without limitation or further compensation." Sounds like a very bad deal.

As a matter of blog history, back in 2004, Launius came in for some not-entirely-fair criticism on Rand Simberg's blog for his skepticism about the prospects of private launch companies. That shouldn't detract from the value of his book recommendations, of course. Besides, we had indeed seen lots of earlier private launch hype with few results, and rockets are indeed dangerous and hard to control. There was nothing crazy or, for that matter, pro-NASA about Launius's comments.

There will be a rally at 3:30 today outside the Egyptian consulate in Manhattan (2nd Ave. between 58th and 59th) in support of Soliman. For more information, visit the Free Kareem site. (Thanks to Todd Seavey for the tip.)

Organ transplants are at once the most amazing and frustrating of medical miracles. A new kidney or heart can cure someone who would otherwise die or, even in less than ideal circumstances, extend life and improve well-being. The surgical skill and pharmaceutical innovation required to make transplantation work are wonders of human ingenuity.

But there is still no such thing as a truly new organ. Unlike insulin or artificial hips, organs so far cannot be successfully manufactured. They come only pre-owned, usually from young, healthy people who have died suddenly in traumatic accidents that destroyed their brains. Rainy weekends increase the organ supply. Helmet laws reduce it. The more than 94,000 Americans on the waiting list for organs are, in effect, waiting for someone else to die so that they can live.

The link embedded in the first paragraph goes to recent Times articles on organ transplants--a useful reference.

While the review obviously reflects my interest in the organ shortage, it's also a follow-up to my Boston Globe article on economic sociology. In fact, thanks to journalistic mobility, the same editor, Jenny Schuessler, assigned both pieces.

The Ball of Whacks, which sold out in December, is once again available through Amazon.com.

Monday, January 29 is Milton Friedman Day. Numerous events are scheduled. Of note:

The University of Chicago Memorial is being streamed live via http://www.ideachannel.tv at 2:00 p.m. CST (GMT -6 hours). This site will also have available an exclusive audio discussion featuring Nobel Prize winners Gary Becker and Ken Arrow discussing Friedman and his ideas. You can also view the Free to Choose series here at no charge.

The Friedman biography, The Power of Choice, premieres on PBS. Check local listings here. DVDs of the program are available via Idea Channel.

For the full listing of events, go to http://www.miltonfriedmanday.org.

Paul Krugman calls Friedman "a great economist and a great man." in this essay in The New York Review of Books. (Via Greg Mankiw.)

Reason's Brian Doherty selects Friedman quotes from three decades of contributions to the magazine.

Here's the agenda, with papers, of a 2003 Dallas Fed conference, "The Legacy of Milton and Rose Friedman's Free to Choose: Economic Liberalism at the Turn of the 21st Century."

I have to wonder where the protesting faculty were during the long site-selection process, when SMU was campaigning for the library and was widely considered the leading contender. Have they been on sabbatical for the past two years?

I look forward to the attention the NYTBR will lavish on such intellectually serious books as Brink Lindsey's The Age of Abundance: How Prosperity Transformed American Politics and Culture and Brian Doherty's Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement. Remember the definitive review they ran of Ryan Sager's The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians and the Battle to Control the Republican Party? Neither do I.

UPDATE: Alan Wolfe emails, "There was indeed a longish lead time on the review, as you suggest.  I am extremely pleased to see so many on the right expressing hostility to DD's book."

All you spanking foes and child-rearing experts don't need to write to explain what a terrible parent I'd be. Even if I had kids, my Pennsylvania-reared husband would never countenance such punishment. Spanking, like gun ownership, is one of the characteristics of southern culture that non-southerners find barbaric. It persists in diaspora, especially among those who don't assimilate into the dominant culture of, say, California. A spanking ban would therefore have a wildly disproportionate effect on conservative Christians and on blacks. With zealous enforcement, California could get the incarceration rates of black mothers up there with those of young, black men.

UPDATE: Thanks to reader James Rait who sent this direct link to the ads and a background article. Reader John Holton, however, has a complaint about the online edition: "These UPS ads are entertaining enough, but not when they take over your computer in the form of a rollover ad and start voicing over whatever you're playing as background music...." What an obnoxious way to undercut a brilliant campaign.

UPDATE: Greetings Andrew Sullivan readers. I have another D'Souza-related post at the top of the main page.

UPDATE2: Here's a link to a more-restrained plug on the TVC website.

"The casual ease of travel now is a source of bewildered distress to my father's generation ('What do you mean, you're going to Bruges? For the weekend? On a whim? But you haven't even booked the ferry!')," writes Michael Bywater, who concludes "Travel is easy now. It is no longer exciting; so we have to bring our own excitement with us, in our luggage or our mind's happily deluded eye." Alexander Frater disagrees: "It is claimed too that travel has become self-delusional, that we only do it to make ourselves seem sexier, more glamorous and important. So what? All that matters is that it continues to lift the spirits and quicken the senses, and keep us alive to a world which, despite the state we've got it into, remains a place of astounding interest, beauty and variety. We're only here once, and I simply cannot understand why absolutely everyone isn't consumed by an unquenchable desire to get out there and see every last bit of it."

Since I travel constantly yet rarely leave the United States, I have none of these problems. I can go to Florence or Paris or London or Tokyo and still find plenty new to see--and those are places I've already been to at least once. At any rate, I suspect that The Guardian's audience is not as well traveled as they think they are. Outside the major cities in the United States, for instance, the only foreign tourists you usually find are Germans, who will go just about anywhere and rent RVs to do it. How many Guardian readers have driven through the desert Southwest or the Blue Ridge? And that's just the United States, which has modern conveniences and a more-or-less common language. Have they really explored all of India, China, and Brazil?

The shot above is from the Braniff archives at UT-Dallas. That's Ginger Rogers wearing the civilian clothes.

As legal scholar Michele Goodwin points out in her book Black Markets: The Supply and Demand of Body Parts, opponents of incentives for organ donors often treat blacks only as potential victims of markets and never as beneficiaries--even though they would likely benefit most. And the ideology that says that the families of deceased donors should have no say over who gets their loved ones' organs discourages blacks to donate. Distrustful of the medical system for historical reasons Goodwin documents--Did you know that southern medical schools used to be known for teaching anatomy better than northern ones, because their suppliers could easily rob black graves to get cadavers?--many blacks indicate that they would be more likely to donate organs if they could be sure the parts would go to other blacks. That idea would horrify many ethicists, who hate the idea of race-conscious organ allocation, but it would benefit everyone on that humongous waiting list.

Meanwhile, as the NYT's Richard Pérez-Peña reports there are 350,000 Americans on dialysis, and those in New York State tend to fare worse than others. In an article that could have been headlined, "Anti-Corporate Bigotry Hurts Poor, Sick Blacks," he reports:

At New York dialysis centers, those being treated are more likely to suffer from anemia and are less likely to have enough impurities and excess fluid removed from their blood, allowing more damage to their bodies, according to the records.

Experts say the disparity is caused in part by the fact that New York is dominated by small dialysis providers, many of them run by people with little background in medicine who entered the business to meet the surging demand.

Many of the smaller centers provide good care, experts say, but a lot also lack the money and staff training to compete on a quality-of-care basis with the national dialysis chains that dominate the market across the rest of the country.

Newly released patient data show that people who receive their dialysis from a national chain generally fare better than those treated by an independent provider.

But the chains are largely blocked from operating in New York by a state law that effectively bars publicly traded companies from owning health care facilities in the state.

In a system that is terribly difficult to reform, fixing that law should be relatively simple--if only the beneficiaries weren't too sick and weak to campaign for reform.

No, the answer isn't "nothing." Guest blogging on Organization and Markets, Professor Postrel explains his research on that question.

The widespread consensus that marble is the pinnacle of bathroom aesthetics is tough on people like me, who far prefer ceramic tile in all its gorgeous incarnations. The pursuit of resale value says put in marble, while current consumption argues in favor of tile. So far, I've stuck to tile.

UPDATE: I've mentioned it before, but I want to again recommend Naked Airport by Alastair Gordon, who tells the history of commercial flight through the history of airport architecture. It's a lively, well-researched book that does a great job of recreating the different eras of air travel.

To receive links to my articles and notices of media appearances via email, please fill out the form below.

Meanwhile, Sydney hairdresser Jennie Maley is preparing to donate a kidney to her client Bernadette Keegan, who has been on dialysis since 2003. "I was blow-waving Bernie's hair one Saturday and I asked her what she was up to that night and she said she had a 'hot date' --at the renal unit. I thought of her sitting there, all on her own," Maley told a local reporter, recalling how she decided to volunteer. The surgery is scheduled for January 31. According to the Daily Telegraph story, here are 1,500 Australians waiting for kidneys, with an average wait of four years.