I wrote several articles for Vanderbilt’s campus newspaper, but all of these were lost from the Vanderbilt Hustler website (along with all historic website content) sometime in the summer of 2016. I’m going to try […]
The American Revolutionaries might have been Thugs
It’s really odd, actually, how the myth of the American founding that I learned in elementary school is reasonably transparent about the fact that this country was founded by thugs who had no respect for the rule […]
Nashville’s Policing Data Show Uneven Racial Burden from Operation Safer Streets
Operation Safer Streets (or OSS for short) has become the epicenter of Nashville’s debates over policing and racial justice. Every weekend, the MNPD funnels police officers to hotspots for gangs or crime, arguing that a […]
When Knowledge Becomes Power—Academics who became politicians
Since I’m studying (or, really, am about to start studying) academic political science towards a PhD in Government, I get asked a lot if I want to become a politician, which seems like a strange […]
Beautiful Etymology
Anandamide, the endogenous cannabanoid neurotransmitter; name comes from “the Sanskrit word ananda, which means ‘joy, bliss, delight.’” (I guess Vishy Anand, the chess player, gets his family name from this word too!) Coprolalia, the word for clinical profanity. Coprolalia […]
Summer Reading Goals and Progress
I have spent some time reading this summer. And a lot of time listening to Audiobooks. Not sure what my goals are, but I do like to keep on learning. I’ll track some progress and […]
Is there systematic gender discrimination in Metro Nashville Employment? Part 1
Using the same municipal employee data from data.nashville.gov as the previous post, here I am looking at whether there is evidence of gender discrimination in the salaries of Metro Nashville government employees. Obviously this is a pretty […]
Playing around with Nashville Open Data – $400 million on government salaries!
I found that the government of Nashville has some open data at https://data.nashville.gov. I messed around with a couple of employment datasheets and made some graphs. Mean Salary vs Ethnicity Mean Annual Salary by Job Category […]
Two odd side-effects of drug prevention campaigns
A Washington Post article today reveals a new cannabis prevention campaign targeting teenagers in Colorado. Unfortunately, the state which has shown the freethinking boldness to legalize marijuana for adults is implementing some of the same, long-debunked nonsense typical […]
Planned remarks before Houston City Council
Below are my planned remarks for the speech I gave at Houston City Hall on Tuesday, July 29, 2014. Unfortunately, due to the number of speakers, I was only allowed one minute instead of the […]
Michael Zoorob 