Rudy Redcoat, Turncoat

Rudy Giuliani betrays Yankeeland in a shameless act of political pandering:

CONCORD, N.H. - Pigs flew, lions slept with lambs - and No. 1 Yankee fan Rudy Giuliani miraculously transformed himself into a Red Sox fan on the eve of the World Series.

"I'm rooting for the Red Sox," the Republican presidential contender Tuesday told a Boston audience, just a few T stops from Fenway Park.

"I'm an American League fan, and I go with the American League team, maybe with the exception of the Mets. Maybe that would be the one time I wouldn't because I'm loyal to New York."

Later in New Hampshire - a loyal dominion within New England's Red Sox Nation and, more importantly to Giuliani, home of the first primary in 2008 - the former mayor expanded on his heresy.

"Somehow it makes me feel better if the team that was ahead of the Yankees wins the World Series," he told a group of mostly local reporters in explaining his sudden backing of the Red Sox, "because then I feel like, well, we're not that bad."

Grr.  In normal situations, rooting for one's own league or even for the team that beat you is OK, but I don't think that flies when it is Red Sox - Yankees.  And I can't believe anyone in Red Sox Nation will admire his flexible allegiance, either, although having said that, this Boston Herald editorial seems to be welcoming him aboard.

The WaPo Caucus has pics of the NY Post and NY Daily News front covers, where Rudy is a "Traitor" and a "Red Coat".  One of the tabloids also calls him a "Mass-kisser".

Well.  Since the NY Times is in the tank for him let me offer some tangentially related Rudy-bashing.  Via Glenn we come to this Times piece about the relationship between leaded gasoline and crime:

Has the Clean Air Act done more to fight crime than any other policy in American history? That is the claim of a new environmental theory of criminal behavior.

In the early 1990s, a surge in the number of teenagers threatened a crime wave of unprecedented proportions. But to the surprise of some experts, crime fell steadily instead. Many explanations have been offered in hindsight, including economic growth, the expansion of police forces, the rise of prison populations and the end of the crack epidemic. But no one knows exactly why crime declined so steeply.

The answer, according to Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, an economist at Amherst College, lies in the cleanup of a toxic chemical that affected nearly everyone in the United States for most of the last century. After moving out of an old townhouse in Boston when her first child was born in 2000, Reyes started looking into the effects of lead poisoning. She learned that even low levels of lead can cause brain damage that makes children less intelligent and, in some cases, more impulsive and aggressive. She also discovered that the main source of lead in the air and water had not been paint but rather leaded gasoline — until it was phased out in the 1970s and ’80s by the Clean Air Act, which took blood levels of lead for all Americans down to a fraction of what they had been. “Putting the two together,” she says, “it seemed that this big change in people’s exposure to lead might have led to some big changes in behavior.”

All well and good but the WaPo had the same story last July and, perhaps sensing his impending flip-flop to the Sox, managed to frame it as a Rudy-basher:

Research Links Lead Exposure, Criminal Activity
Data May Undermine Giuliani's Claims

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 8, 2007; A02

Rudy Giuliani never misses an opportunity to remind people about his track record in fighting crime as mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001.

"I began with the city that was the crime capital of America," Giuliani, now a candidate for president, recently told Fox's Chris Wallace. "When I left, it was the safest large city in America. I reduced homicides by 67 percent. I reduced overall crime by 57 percent."

Although crime did fall dramatically in New York during Giuliani's tenure, a broad range of scientific research has emerged in recent years to show that the mayor deserves only a fraction of the credit that he claims. The most compelling information has come from an economist in Fairfax who has argued in a series of little-noticed papers that the "New York miracle" was caused by local and federal efforts decades earlier to reduce lead poisoning.

The theory offered by the economist, Rick Nevin, is that lead poisoning accounts for much of the variation in violent crime in the United States. It offers a unifying new neurochemical theory for fluctuations in the crime rate, and it is based on studies linking children's exposure to lead with violent behavior later in their lives.

What makes Nevin's work persuasive is that he has shown an identical, decades-long association between lead poisoning and crime rates in nine countries.

I scarcely want to start a fight about intellectual precedence but the Times story features Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, who apparently did a state-by-state comparison within the US; late in the Times story we learn about Rick Nevin, who seems to have preceded Ms. Reyes with his international work.  The WaPo also includes this:

Other evidence has accumulated in recent years that lead is a neurotoxin that causes impulsivity and aggression, but these studies have also drawn little attention. In 2001, sociologist Paul B. Stretesky and criminologist Michael Lynch showed that U.S. counties with high lead levels had four times the murder rate of counties with low lead levels, after controlling for multiple environmental and socioeconomic factors.

In 2002, Herbert Needleman, a psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh, compared lead levels of 194 adolescents arrested in Pittsburgh with lead levels of 146 high school adolescents: The arrested youths had lead levels that were four times higher.

"Impulsivity means you ignore the consequences of what you do," said Needleman, one of the country's foremost experts on lead poisoning, explaining why Nevin's theory is plausible. Lead decreases the ability to tell yourself, "If I do this, I will go to jail."

By comparison, the Times does not mention Stretesky and Lynch and only notes Needleman in their closing paragraph.

The impulse control point is interesting.  One objection to the Reyes and Nevin studies is that they correlate a drop in violent crime but not property crime.  From the Times:

The magnitude of these claims has been met with a fair amount of skepticism. Jeffrey Miron, a Harvard economist, wonders how lead could have had such a strong effect on violent crime while, according to Reyes, it showed almost no effect on property crimes like theft. He also doubts that the hypothesis could explain the plunge in the U.S. murder rate from the 1930s through the 1950s.

Off the top of my head, the obvious response is that property crimes may tend to be more pre-meditated and less a matter of impulse control.

Comments

[Other Tom]

Unfair bash against Rudy, for two reasons:

(1) When the Yanks played the Mets in the most recent Subway Sereies (1999?), he made no effort at all to divide the baby. He said, "I'm a Yankee fan, I've been one all my life, and I'm rooting for the Yankees."

(2) I understand exactly what he's saying now. The whole time I was growing up I was a passionate Yankee fan (remained one until Mantle left, then Steinbrenner arrived, and I did a 180). On those rare occasions when the Yanks weren't in the series, I rooted for the AL entry--Indians in '54 is the one I remember best, being age 13 and suffering the Mays catch of Vic Wertz, the Dusty Rhodes homeruns, etc.

[sylvia]

Probably the main reason the crime dropped in NYC at that time is that because of social trends of later marriage, the new economy, etc, NYC went from large part urban ghetto filled with young angry poor kids and gangs to the yuppie haven it is today, starting around the time Rudy became mayor. This can be seen by the skyrocketing real estate prices during that time. I haven't actualy researched this but I theorize yuppie bureaucrats are just not as likely to commit violent crimes as some other groups. I don't know why no one is not stating the obvious here.

[cathyf]

leaded gasoline — until it was phased out in the 1970s and ’80s by the Clean Air Act

Interesting piece of trivia -- the Clean Air Act was only indirectly the cause. The law required cleaning up various noxious pollutants from car exhausts, not including lead. The only way to do this was to equip cars with catalytic converters. The lead in leaded gasoline destroys the catalyst in the converter, so you can't put leaded gasoline into a car with one.

If the lead hadn't hurt the catalytic converters, then we'd still be driving around on leaded gas.

[Walter]

...studies link[] children's exposure to lead with violent behavior later in their lives.

Well, another obvious difference between violent crimes and property crimes is that property crimes do not involve violence by definition. If lead exposure correlates with violence as opposed to crime in general, the data fit the theory. It would be more troubling for the theory if property crimes dropped with violent crimes as lead exposure declined.

[Barney Frank]

They're partly right in attributing these trends to lead. They just haven't pinned down the source nor the cause.

In the USA over this period there was a marked increase in the issuance of concealed carry permits which induced a pronounced fear of acute lead poisoning in
the more obstreporous populations of our society.
Conversely in Australia and Britain there was a severe curtailing of private gun ownership in both countries with a concomitant diminution of the fear of acute and especially morbid lead poisoning and a huge increase of property and violent crimes in both.

More lead, less crime.

[Walter]

It's my fault:

10-27-07

I and most of my fellow fans will be pulling for the hapless Cubbies. Let's hear a real Yankees fan say that 'bout the Red (or White, for that matter) Sox.

And it's also an example of Rudy's self-destructive tendencies:

08-31-07

It’s simple logic. The Yankees and Red Sox hate each other, or at the very least, Yankees and Red Sox fans hate each other.

Please do not try this. A Red Sox fan and a Yankee fan in the same body is a paradox of universe-obliterating proportions. Do you really want to be responsible for the end of all existence? [emphasis added]

[Skip]

The rule is actually that you should, in the following order:

1. Root against the Yankees.
2. Root for your own team.
3. Root for whoever beat you, unless it's the Yankees.
4. Root for your division/league representative, unless it's the Yankees.

Fairly simple set of rules, covering all reasonable cases. Now, it happens to have some conflicts if you're one of those poor misguided souls who is a Yankees fan, but nothing's perfect.

[Other Tom]

"I haven't actualy researched this, but..."

Sylvia, have you researched the part about NYC being transformed from an urban ghetto to a haven for yuppies under Rudy, or is that maybe just your impression? How about the "later marriage" bit? What perecentage of the criminals were the children of married parents before Rudy? After Rudy? And for those whose parents were married, how did their average age on their wedding dates change?

How did those angry kids come to participate in the "new economy?" And what, exactly, was that new economy?

Personally, I think Global Warming began under Rudy, and I can never forgive him for it.

Sorry to state the obvious, but as Sylvia noted, somebody has to do it.

[gmax]

Thanks Other Tom for stating the obvious. Here is one more, Sylvia, have you never noticed that all the other marchers in the band are out of step with you? Why is it that what is obvious to you, is a double take follwed by a "What?" every where else?

[Mike B]

As a Yankee Fan like Rudy I rarely watch National League Ball and also root for the AL Team. I hardly know any players in the NL. Attacking Rudy on this issue is childish.

[Barney Frank]

--I don't know why no one is not stating the obvious here.--

Perhaps because no one doesn't know anyone who can not figure out what the above doesn't mean.

[Jane]

I am compelled to post my only Rudy anectdote - well I have a couple but this is the only first hand one.

Many years ago, pre-911 when Rudy was mayor, I attended the 40th b-day party of a friend in NYC who is very tied in with the democrats.

As were her guests.

As the night wore on I was tired and wanted to return to Brooklyn where I was spending the night. I was offered a ride by another guest who was some guy in the dem party that was high up enough to get an official car that allowed him to break every traffic law including parking, and a woman who was in charge of Rudy's program for the homeless - which at the time was revolutionary and ended up being hugely successful.

At any rate as we went first up town and then back down she pointed out with tremendous pride this hotel and that, which had been converted to rooms for the homeless while explaining the very coersive and very successful program which virtual rid NYC of homeless people.

Her story was laced with hatred for her boss, Rudy. She hated him with all fiber of her being. He was against free speech according to her, he was almost Gestapo to listen to what she said. Yet it was his program that she was running with so much pride. She was cleaning up NY and simply hated it, and loved it all at the same time.

Red Sox nation is A-Ok with Rudy on our side!

[hit and run]

I've seen it rainin' fire from the sky...

[Jane]

Check the score H&R

[Sue]

Must be a slow news day. Why else would this be a story? The better story was why Hillary! couldn't decide if she was a Yankee fan or a Chicago fan. That's what happens when you are fake to begin with. At least Rudy would have been sure who he would have rooted for if the Yankees had been in the WS.

[Sue]

Myself, I always root for the team that didn't beat my team. Or the cuter quarterback.

[hit and run]

Jane:
Check the score H&R

Sue:
Myself, I always root for the team that didn't beat my team. Or the cuter quarterback.

Rooting for the cute defender, and checking the score, it's Jmax up by 2.

[Other Tom]

Somebody clue me in about the Rockies. This guy Jeff Francis--he's the ace of the staff, right? Am I right?

Just axin'...

[arrowhead]

Rudy's choice in the series makes perfect sense to me. We always root for the American League - even if it means rooting for the Yankees. (This was especially true in the 2001 World Series.)

[sylvia]

"Sylvia, have you researched the part about NYC being transformed from an urban ghetto to a haven for yuppies under Rudy, or is that maybe just your impression?"

Uhh, yeah I lived it. And we made a nice tidy sum in real estate because of it. As to my mentioning later marriage, new economy, etc, perhaps I did not make myself clear. I wasn't talking about the later marriages of the families living there. I was talking about the forces behind gentrification of the urban areas across this country, especially evident in NYC. Gentrification is just a nice way to say kicking out poor minorities with children and moving in yuppies. It started in Manhattan and reached out slowly to the burroughs. Gentrification is the main factor that cut the crime rate in NYC. Giuliani only had a minor role in that. I don't think it's PC for the media to actually write about that though.

[Other Tom]

Thanks, Sylvia. As I understand it, your research consists of your personal anecdote.

When the poor minorities with children got kicked out of NYC, where did they go? Does your research disclose what happened to the crime rates in their newfound home towns?

The population of NY City is 8.2 million. Of that number, how many were yuppies before Giuliani became mayor? How many were yuppies at the end of his tenure? How many of the incremental yuppies displaced criminals who left New York?

How did the later marriages of people not living in New York City come to affect the crime rate in the city?

[Gmax]

Get clicking, there is a poll this open:

http://soccer.seniorclassaward.com/women/candidates.aspx>Vot for JMAX!

[Jane]

Vot for JMAX!

Done

Hey GMAx, is Jessica enjoying all this?

[Gmax]

She is in a full load of classes, practice every afternoon, usually two games a week and to top it all off, she is now getting offers of second interviews ( In Dallas ) for the job that comes after her masters is completed in May. She is one busy girl, and I doubt most days she even knows about the effort on her behalf. BUT I do, and most appreciate it.

[HoosierHoops]

NYC went from large part urban ghetto filled with young angry poor kids and gangs to the yuppie haven it is today, starting around the time Rudy became mayor

Yup..once those hard core yuppies invaded the neighborhoods of NY..the other gangs didn't stand a chance..
Just the sight of roving BMW's often cleared the streets in anticipation of a Yuppie driveby.
I'm mildly surprised the crips and bloods have held onto so long in LA. Apparently the LA Glitz scene is failing to displace those gangs in any meaningful way...very disappointing.
Seriously though..
Hit & Run: Are you training for the mud wrestling contest or just talking about it?
You need to turn on the sprinkler in the front yard and use your boom box to play some Rocky Music and get into training before somebody takes you up on your offer..
Send some pics to clarice to prove yourself.
Don't make the same mistake as in Rocky 2 and wait too long to start.

[kim]

Which comes first, the chicken or the egg, in the sociology of crime. Lead? Who'd a thunk it. It like blaming obesity on a virus.
=======================================

[PMII]

Totally unrelated but has everyone heard of Rangel's new tax plan? The socialist/communist get real old.

Maybe the real solution is to tax the poor at a very high rate which would give them an incentive to make more.

[Jane]

Totally unrelated but has everyone heard of Rangel's new tax plan?

Yeah it's quite the plan. My business partner and I were commenting at lunch on what a boon it would be to gays - particularly if only one partner made over $150K

Then we decided that they (the gvt) would try and make gays couples pay.

Then we decided that was the perfect opportunity for a law suit on a issue that did not belong with the legislature.

Then we decided that the legislature would decide it was worth it to let gays marry to get the tax money.

Then we decided that gays should refuse.

And then lunch we over and we, (well she at least), went back to work.

[Jane]

***lunch WAS over***

Why on earth do I try to be funny?

[Other Tom]

I think you're funny, Jane--please keep it up.

[cathyf]

I've thought about setting up a church for couples who wish to be married in the eyes of God but not the IRS. Alas my church looks rather askance at members setting up their own churches (that pesky excommunication thingy). They also won't let their clergy officiate at a marriage unless the people are also being married according to civil law in whatever the place is. Oh, well...

[Jane]

I've thought about setting up a church for couples who wish to be married in the eyes of God but not the IRS.

Actually the IRS is pretty good to married people - it used to be something like 1000 benefits are bestowed along with a marriage license - most of them financial.

I'm gonna start a movement for the single among us - those who for whatever reason don't get married. Why should we miss out on all the free stuff?

[Forbes]

So the Clean Air Act phases out leaded gasoline in 1973. Does anyone recall anything but unleaded gasoline sold at service stations for use by automobiles, since then?

Yet, some researchers want to attribute a decline in the crime rate, following a 20-year lag, to the absence of lead in gasoline. This doesn't even pass the smell test.

And considering that most of the rest of the world continued to use leaded gasoline long past 1973--the phase-outs being more limited and more recent--foreign crime rates must be exceedingly high, for this theory to hold.

Ahem, since rates of violent crime in foreign (OECD) countries have generally been nothing comparable to that of the US, it is rather obvious that there are other explanations for the US reduction in crime.

Although many never learn, but as any first-year statistics student will tell you, correlation is not causation.

It's a wonder newspapers stay in business, with all the garbage they publish.

[PMII]

Is it possible, in the eyes of the IRS, to be both married and single?

And I had heard once that it takes 10% more crude to produce a gallon of unleaded gas vs. a gallon of leaded gas.

[Other Tom]

I guess the defenders of the lead theory might say that you should expect a lag of twenty years or so, assuming that if people were exposed to lead as infants they would be more likely to become crooks, and it takes the exposed ones a while to develop into lead-crazed crooks after they mature. As I say, that's what the defenders might say, but I am not one of them.

I had a statistics prof who said he could prove that sitting in the first three rows at burlesque shows causes baldness. (In order to see the humor in that, you have to know what a burlesque show is. Or was.)

[cathyf]

Actually the IRS is pretty good to married people - it used to be something like 1000 benefits are bestowed along with a marriage license - most of them financial.

Unless both are employed. Then, for the 2nd spouse it's "Welcome to the Flat Tax, it's 50%!"

[sylvia]

"When the poor minorities with children got kicked out of NYC, where did they go? Does your research disclose what happened to the crime rates in their newfound home towns?"

They went into the surrounding areas. Jersey City, Newark, Queens. And as a person who lived around there, I can say that yes those areas did continue with the high crime rates. I wouldn't say they went up in crime, because you were just adding more of the same demographic mix. Even a lot of those areas such as Jersey City and Newark are gentrifying now. As I don't live there anymore I'm not sure what is happening now to the poorer families. Probably spreading out into the close suburbs. When I lived there - places like Harlem and the Lower East Side of Manhattan were no go areas to most people. Now you probably have to pay a million dollars for a studio there.

"The population of NY City is 8.2 million. Of that number, how many were yuppies before Giuliani became mayor? How many were yuppies at the end of his tenure? How many of the incremental yuppies displaced criminals who left New York?"

When I hear about the falling crime stats of New York, I would be interested to see what the stats are for each burrough. I think a lot of the crowing is about Manhattan - which I believe has about 3 million residents, not the other areas. But from what I remember back then, even the bad areas of Manhattan were still better than the bad areas of Brooklyn and the Bronx. So once the yuppies invaded Manhattan, the original families who though poor were slightly better off, invaded the outer burroughs. The hardcore poor of the outer burroughs probably remained, but the slightly better off ones of the burroughs probably left and spread out to the suburbs, raising up the average income levels of the outer burroughs as well. Probably in the suburbs the influx of poorer families was too dilute and spread out to have any strong effect. Anyway, this is not rocket science, gentrification is a fact of this country of these last 15 years, and has had many effects in the urban areas that I'm sure sociologists can tell you about.

As to my double negative, sorry. I noticed that right after I posted it and was about to post a correction, but thought you were all bright enough to figure it out on your own.

[sylvia]

Just as an aside, someone gave me a really funny book back then that listed articles and interviews from the local neighborhood papers, detailing the reactions of the locals to the yuppie influx. They had interviews with locals saying things like they didn't understand why yuppies didn't like curtains or why they went to work in sneakers. I don't know what happened to that book. But it defintely portrayed the conflicts of the "yuppie invasion".

[dick]

I don't know about Sylvia but her comments make no sense to me at all. When they give crime statistics for New York, they normally give crime statistics for the whole city - all 5 boroughs. When the people were forced out of Manhattan by all the Yuppies, they just moved to the other boroughs so there should have been no change in crime stats at all. The stats in some areas might have gotten better (Lower East Side, for instance) but the total should have been relatively the same. Since they changed so much from pre-Rudy to after Rudy took over, then the only explanation that makes any sense to me is the policies of Rudy. To say it was because of the Yuppies moving in and the older marriages, etc etc etc is just a way not to give credit where it belonged.

The story about the government employee who hated Rudy sounds about right. I still remember all the stories about how great it was to live in the cleaned up NYC and Rudy was a Hitler, a fascist, a dictator, a totalitarian, a Stalin and he was trampling all over people's rights and freedoms and he should be voted out of office. Just check the NYT and the Daily News and the Village Voice and the other newspapers in New York at the time. You would think it was written about George Bush the way they carried on - but it was always wonderful living in NYC now that it was cleaned up. They tried to give credit to anyone but Rudy - and they are still trying to give credit to anyone but Rudy. Now they are telling us how much better Bloomberg is than Rudy was. The problem is that without Rudy breaking down the walls he did Bloomberg would never have happened.

[JJ]

Read that Times article last Sunday in its mag.

Note that it is written by an ... wait for it ... an economist!? Sorta sounds a bit like a maggots manifest from meat theory.

I respect the statistical work done by just about anyone. But it sounds more conjecture than evidence.

Nice catch on the NYT article as a rerun.

Now that's closer to evidence: that the Times still can't tell its reporting pages from its editorial pages.

[JJ]

Read that Times article last Sunday in its mag.

Note that it is written by an ... wait for it ... an economist!? Sorta sounds a bit like a maggots manifest from meat theory.

I respect the statistical work done by just about anyone. But it sounds more conjecture than evidence.

Nice catch on the NYT article as a rerun.

Now that's closer to evidence: that the Times still can't tell its reporting pages from its editorial pages.

[Other Tom]

Well, Sylvia, I'll certainly agree that what you're saying is not rocket science. No, indeed.

And I have not seen or heard of a single socialogist who says that the reduction in the crime rate in New York was caused by gentrification forcing the criminals out. And until I see some actual numbers, I simply do not believe it.

[Walter]

Other Tom,

A possible unifying approach is the "broken windows" theory.

At a very simplistic level, it states that crime increases when criminals see that nobody cares about little crimes. It implies that, once the people in a given area fix broken windows when they shatter (&punish those who break them), crime of all sorts decline.

That change in attitudes can come through policing changes, changes in attitude and behavior of existing residents, or importing people with traditional respect for others' property.

To the extent that the neighborhood "feels" different after the adjustment, and property values rise, gentrification happens as a result.

Of course, this begs the question of whether Rudy or his Police Commisioner is responsible, and should not be termed the "Leaded Glass" window effect.

[Walter]

*declines*

gentrification happens as a result.
*one could describe the result as gentrification.*

[sylvia]

"When the people were forced out of Manhattan by all the Yuppies, they just moved to the other boroughs so there should have been no change in crime stats at all."

Wrong. Many of them moved to New Jersey and Long Island. They couldn't all just up and move to the burroughs because the burroughs were already kind of full. Some of them had to move out of the burroughs and some of the lower income people did and then were replaced by slightly higher income people from Mahattan, hence the average income levels of all burroughs went up slowly. Try to comprehend what I said. Anyway, I'm debating with trolls so why bother.

[sylvia]

And besides, don't forget, we are talking about a rental market here. When we got real estate in the mid-90's, people all seemed like they thought we were almost fascists. For some reason, people in NYC at that time thought it was so bourgeosis (sp?) to buy. So contrary to a owner occupied homes, rental districts can turn over in a flash. And once the fashion starts, it seems to pick up speed. It only took a few years to yuppie-ize many areas of Manhattan, that seemed to coincidentally start around the time of Giuliani.