Superfreakonomics was a great read. Every chapter was fascinating, apart from the one about the "birthday bulge", which I have read about again and again in similar texts, including one of Malcolm Gladwell's. The concept is that child athletes that succeed almost always have fall birthdays. Among a grade of students, those who are born in September or October are significantly older than their peers born in July or August. For children even an age difference of eleven months can provide a significant edge in development. So let's say you take a group of fifth grade hockey players. The ones with fall birthdays may be stronger and farther along in puberty than the ones born in the summer, so they get ranked better and that causes an ongoing advantage in the sport. It is much more eloquently stated in the book, but I hope I least made some sense
My favourite chapter was on why suicide bombers should buy life insurance. It discussed an algorithm created by a British banker to detect terrorists. There are many factors that can indicate someone is a terrorist I was a bit infuriated that the main factor was whether or not someone had a Muslim name. Many terrorist organization purposely seek out people with Western names, such as David Headly who organized the Bombay attacks, so I found it a bit ignorant they didn't take that into account. As much as I hate racial profiling, I got over it and kept reading. There were other factors that people expected to have an effect that didn't, for example it didn't matter how close a person lived to a mosque. Using a wide range of variables, including one that had to remain unnamed for national security reasons, they made a very accurate algorithm for detecting terrorists. One of the factors was whether or not someone had life insurance. Now it may seem like someone who was about to kill themselves would want life insurance, but we must remember that a. insurance companies do not cover suicide bombings and b. almost all terrorists are young men with no families. If a terrorist were to buy life insurance, they could easily fly under the radar of this algorithm. Why they didn't have to keep this a secret, I do not know, seems silly to explain the algorithm in any sort of detail in a best-selling book, but it did make for a fascinating read.
Now that I am done with Superfreakonomics, I've decided to take a different turn. I will not be reading fiction, even though I do miss it a bit. Instead I've decided to embark on a journey my mother did many years ago. I'm going to attempt to read all the religious texts of major world religions. I'm starting with the Quran. Although Islam has made it very clear that the Quran should be read by followers in its original Arabic, I have not learned Arabic yet (it's on my bucket list though) and will be reading an English translation that seems to be universally praised. One thing that sets the Quran apart from the Bible is that if you read it in English, it has only been translated once and therefore retains much of its original meaning. People forget the Bible has been translated hundreds of times, and I am sure this has caused confusion and alterations.
Islam has always been an important part of my life. Many of my parents' friends are Muslim and as a child we travelled through the Middle East. I was also mentored by a Muslim vet I volunteered for, and he taught me so much about Islam and life in general. My mother's friend Lubna Al Qasimi is a member of the royal family in the UAE and the country's first woman minister. Despite breaking down gender roles found in her culture, she has remained religious. My mother has benefitted greatly from reading the Quran. She has a greater understanding of where her friends come from, and has been able to successfully shut down Islamophobic idiots by directly quoting the Quran. I can't wait to someday be able to do the same!
