Smokefree restaurants and the European marketplace

In a recent poll, more than 60% of Germans favored a smoking ban in restaurants. I've seen similar numbers for France. Everything I know about free markets suggests that large enough niche markets will be rapidly accommodated by the marketplace, and 60% is more than a niche. Why then, is it so hard to find a smokefree restaurant in either country? Generally, smokefree dining in Germany or France is confined to venues that are smokefree for some other reason (e.g. museums, department stores) or the even rarer hippieish vegetarian restaurant. In California, smokefree restaurants started showing up in the mid-80's, long before smokefree legislation seemed possible, and by 1990 smokefree dining was easy to find (especially in restaurants catering to the upper middle class).

Only two explanations seem possible. European restaurateurs either have some knowledge that is not revealed in the polls (the marketplace is working), or they are more fearful of change than their American counterparts (the marketplace is dysfunctional). There's also the possibility that things have changed since my last visit to Europe in 2005, but that doesn't explain why the marketplace seemed to be failing then. Of course this will all be moot soon, as these governments are about to mandate smokefree environments for all restaurants. In the meantime, I'm looking for an answer and would like to hear your comments.

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A few people have told me that they couldn't leave comments because they weren't registered users. Apparently, the default blogger settings don't allow comments from the general public. I've fixed that, so flame on! (Actually, respectful comments are preferred).

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Depressing Career Moments

For some unknown reason the numbers on a touch-tone phone are arranged with the smaller numbers up top, while calculators have the smaller numbers on the bottom. In graduate school and in my early career, I would often start dialing a touch-tone phone and inadvertently punch in the numbers as though I was using a calculator (rotary phones were still common so I wasn't using exclusively touch-tone). One of my most depressing career moments was when I realized that I was accidentally doing the opposite; the phone numbering scheme had become more automatic than the calculator's!

By the way, if you have fond memories of your HP calculators with Reverse Polish Notation and the best buttons ever, check out the museum of HP calculators. I'll substitute one of their pictures into this post if the curator will give me permission.

On Confederate Flags and the Pledge of Allegiance

Hillary Clinton just repeated a Democratic primary campaign tradition - the ritual condemnation of the Confederate flag that flies over the South Carolina statehouse. And she was right to do so. Flying the Confederate flag is not a time honored tradition, but was instituted as a segregationist statement of defiance against the federal government for the civil rights policies of the 50's and 60's. As such, the Confederate flag is an insult to those who put their lives on the line to complete what was the United State's greatest unfinished task. Those who fly the flag are implying that they only acquiesced to civil rights because they had to, not because they finally realized that segregation was wrong.

I wish a high profile politician would apply the same standards to the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Again it is not an old tradition (like "In God we trust" on coins), but was added in the 1950s to contrast American religiosity with the state-mandated atheism of the Communists. The proponents of the phrase didn't understand that it was our freedom of religion (including the freedom to not believe) that made our system superior. Likewise, the Communist system was evil because it enforced a religious point of view, not because that point of view was atheism. Inclusion of the phrase "under God" is offensive to me not because I believe that all references to religion should be removed from the public square or that I am inferring unintended meanings, but because the deliberate intent of the phrase is to associate being a true American with religious belief.

On the other hand, if I had to run for office I would probably just let it go too.

The American Presidents: George Washington

Upon browsing the bookstore shelves I came across an intriguing series of books, entitled The American Presidents edited by Arthur Schlesinger. Based on the intriguing author list ranging from top historians (Robert Dallek, Gary Wills), political figures (Gary Hart and John Dean) to a novelist (E.L. Doctorow), I was compelled to dive in. I hope to draw some lessons regarding the qualities of character that make for both good and lesser presidents, and some insight into what to look for in the current crop of candidates for 2008. Also, I'm currently interested in the history of presidential power, as I believe our current administration is dangerously overreaching. Of course since I'm dealing with history, I'm as likely to draw the wrong lessons as the right ones, but at least I'll be able to back up my arguments and sound authoritative. It's easy enough to draw the wrong conclusions from a controlled science experiment, and history is anything but controlled.

Each volume is 150-175 pages, giving equal time to James Garfield (who served less than a year) and FDR. It looks like each volume devotes its first third or so to the pre-presidential career, with the bulk of the book being devoted to the presidency. The result is a volume that compares to a full-blown biography like a blog post compares to a real essay. At this length, getting through the entire series seems feasible, and I'm intrigued by the prospect of learning about people like Benjamin Harrison and Rutherford B. Hayes, as well getting new perspectives on the usual suspects.


The fact that I'm writing this post in the United States of America governed by pretty much the same constitution as written in 1789 is a testament to the effectiveness of George Washington as the first President. When we read the constitution, we imagine the government as it is organized today; however, a closer look shows that it doesn't really tell us that much about the executive branch. We're just mentally filling in the details with what we take for granted. Washington and his cabinet (the cabinet isn't specified in the constitution either) expertly defined the role of the executive, including the executive's supreme role in foreign policy, and leadership in proposing legislation. Washington gave the presidency enough power to be effective, but prudently did not grab the monarchical powers Americans might have granted him.

The authors, James MacGregor Burns and Susan Dunn, do a good if pedestrian job of explaining just how dicey Washington's situation was. Success for the American experiment was not assured, but Washington surrounded himself with the best and the brightest including Alexander Hamilton as Treasury Secretary, Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State, and James Madison as his point man in Congress. Rather sensibly, he preferred the vigorous debate to take place within the administration and to emerge publicly with one voice. As public debate and dissent became more rancorous and partisan, Washington found the presidency more distasteful. As a result, Washington's second unanimous election established a tradition being honored to this day, the tumultuous second term.

I came off with a favorable impression of Washington, but the authors never conveyed the empathy (which does not preclude criticism) that I find in the best biography. That may have been due to Washington's carefully crafted public image, which is difficult to penetrate. However, they did tempt me to dig into the giant biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow that's sitting on my bookshelf. Instead, I started the next book in the series, John Adams , and it's already a more compelling read than the Washington biography. I look forward to reporting on it.

DVD Watch: This Film is Not Yet Rated

This Film is Not Yet Rated, directed by a very visible (a la Michael Moore) Kirby Dick, is a perceptive, if not revelatory look at the MPAA's rating system for movies. I've always considered the rating system somewhat loathsome, especially because of the changes filmmakers must make to accommodate the system. Although his criticisms of the MPAA hit the mark, Kirby Dick doesn't emphasize that some of the worst problems with the system are due to reactions to the rating system, rather than MPAA policy.

In 1990, the MPAA tried to do the right thing and instituted the NC-17 rating - an "adults only" rating that was meant to bypass the stigma of the X rating, which had been co-opted by the pornographic film industry. These efforts were almost immediately sabotaged by national video rental chains, many theater chains, and newspapers, all of which refused to distribute or promote NC-17 movies.

The second crisis (and probably more damaging from an artistic perspective) occurred in the mid-1990s, when theaters were pressured into strictly enforcing the R rating. Before this crackdown, theaters were effectively allowed to create their own local standards for admission into R rated movies, and often based admission on how old or mature a teenager looked, and might even apply different standards for different movies. The new enforcement regime, along with Hollywood's dependence on the teenage market, created enormous financial pressure to make PG-13 movies with content pushed as far to the edge of R as possible.

As a result, we currently have a rating system with effectively two enforcement (as opposed to advisory) categories: the unrestricted admission G's (G, PG and PG-13) and R. I don't include the NC-17 because it means that the film is virtually banned (although through no fault of the MPAA). I don't understand the usefulness of three advisory categories (especially as hard to differentiate as G and PG, and as mind-bogglingly broad as PG-13), when so much more detailed information is available in alternative media.

Kirby Dick doesn't really give us many proposals for reform beyond the laudable desire to make the process more open. However, even an open system will have its moments of arbitrariness as lines will have to be drawn somewhere. Since no system will seem fair to everyone, the main goal of ratings reform should be to minimize the consequences of inevitable bad decisions.

So what are the main problems with the current rating system?
1. NC-17 is a stigmatized rating
2. Strict ID checking for R-rated movies have created pressure to make PG-13 movies, because they are the only movies that teenagers can get into without an adult. However, a PG-13 movie must also be watered down enough for unaccompanied 9-10 year olds.
3. Both number 1 and 2 result in commercial cliffs (into an NC-17 or R rating) that can represent financial suicide.

The simplest solution is to increase the number of enforcement categories and soften the blow of slipping a category in the ratings. My proposal is to divide the R rating into a soft-R and a hard-R with their own enforcement criteria (Soft and hard do not necessarily refer to the state of genitalia in these movies, but they could!). The exact enforcement criteria are arbitrary, but I can imagine a soft-R requiring children 12 and under to have a parent present at the box office , and a hard-R banning children under 12 and requiring parental accompaniment for under 17s. The most objectionable PG-13 movies (crude comedies and violent fare) and softer or ennobling R movies (the Matrix, Schindler's List) could be in the soft-R category, while harder core R's (Kill Bill, Gangs of New York) and most NC-17 movies (Requiem for a Dream) would go to the hard-R category (and I won't have to see people taking their 4 year olds to these movies anymore). The most severe NC-17s (Short Bus) would remain NC-17, because certain corporate entities need something to ban in order to demonstrate their moral standards to the public.

Finally, on a personal note some of my best movie experiences (Hair, Network) were the result of being admitted underage. I recall that I went almost straight from 11 years old, qualifying for the child price, to 17 years old. I never could find a movie theater that would let me do both at the same time.

Bond Trivia Contest

I've always been something of a James Bond fan; it's part of my extended adolescence. I even like to watch bad James Bond movies. I actually have a theory that it's the bad movies we like that really define us as moviegoers, and I'll write about that someday.

On Saturday I competed in the James Bond trivia contest at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, which is part of the non-profit American Cinematheque . The contest covered the seven Sean Connery Bond movies. It was conducted in spelling bee format with seven panelists asking questions - each panelist being an "expert" in one movie. Once you missed three questions, you were out. Steven Jay Rubin, author of The Complete James Bond Movie Encyclopedia, moderated.

Because I hadn't seen any of the movies since around 2000 and my Connery DVDs were in the hands of my brother, I needed to devise a time efficient study strategy. I checked out Steve Rubin's 450 page opus from the local library on Wednesday night, and read straight through, skipping the irrelevant parts. Because many facts are repeated (e.g. characters are listed both under their character name and under the cast name), it was the perfect way to study.


Thirty-eight of us (only two females) participated. Fortunately, my study strategy was effective, as I came in third, and got lots of swag. Each of the five finalists got the stuff in the red bag which included Avengers videos, Casino Royale souvenirs, altoids, a DVD of the Peacemaker, and a ticket to the Cinematheque. The top three finalists got a 5 movie DVD set from the Ultimate James Bond Collection. Mine contained two-disc editions of Thunderball, The Spy Who Loved Me, A View to a Kill (Grace likes this one for some reason), Licence to Kill, and Die Another Day.


Here's the five finalists (I'm in the middle peering over the winner who's wearing a tie) and Steven Jay Rubin (on the right). His book is fun and essential if you have a need to fill your brain with useless information for a trivia contest (especially if he's the moderator). If you want a more erudite (but readable) account of the role of the Bond films role in both film and cultural history, I highly recommend Licence to Thrill by James Chapman. If you grew up with the Bond series (I was born in 1962, the year Dr. No was released), you'll probably find the book quite fascinating.

Grace was impressed with my accomplishments at the trivia competition. She just wants to know why I can store all this useless information, but can't seem to remember where things are kept in the house.