Halloween 2009

The parade of princesses, X-Men, fairies, clowns, spidermen, ballet dancers, soldiers, ghosts and raggedy-ann dolls is dwindling like the Halloween candy in the bowl by the front door.  The innocence of children always warms my heart and I love giving out the candy on All Hallows Eve.

The Halloween costumes were pretty standard this year.  No one was dressed as Nancy Pelosi's 1,990 page health care plan, or as Nancy Pelosi for that matter.  Kids are wonderfully non-political.

Well in another 29 minutes I'm turning off the porch light and spending the rest of Halloween reading my latest book:  SuperFreakonomics by Levitt & Dubner.  I read Freakonomics yesterday.  The authors say that if the book has a message it is that people respond to incentives.  Indeed, it is interesting to see how people align themselves with their own best interests, all the time.  The authors say that while morality tells us how the world should work, economics tells us how it actually does work.

That can be very useful information for navigating through life.  Indeed, it explains so much about how and why humans behave the way they do.