Reading the Times: Religion and Financial Destiny; Hats off to Yale!

Is Religion Your Financial Destiny?

David Leonhardt reviews the recent findings of Pew survey. It finds a high correlation between certain relgious traditions and our financial status.

Do you want to be well off? Better become a Reform Jew.

Here’s a paragraph worthy of further consideration:

Many factors are behind the discrepancies among religions, but one stands out. The relationship between education and income is so strong that you can almost draw a line through the points on this graph. Social science rarely produces results this clean.

Yale Opens Its Image Vault Online for Free

Though it distresses my Harvardian heart to say so, I have to offer hats off to Yale. According to a recent piece in the New York Times, Yale is opening up its vast library of digital images. This will be available to the public at no charge. Even more notable:

So far, 250,000 images are available; it will take years until the entire collection is online. Yale is taking the unusual step of imposing no limits on the use of the images and is not requiring any licensing.

Way to go, Yale! Maybe this will motivate other major universities to follow suit. Maybe even one in Cambridge, Massachusetts.