Political science professor Thomas F. Schaller’s latest Baltimore Sun column responds to the claim that “President Obama won re-election because Americans want ‘free stuff’.” He argues that “contrary to what talk-show conservatives imply, many government programs skew toward middle-class and upper-income Americans” and usage of federal benefit programs is near universal, rather than tied to political affiliation.

Schaller writes, “according to political scientists Suzanne Mettler and John Sides, 96 percent of Americans have benefited from at least one (and typically more) of just 21 federal programs, ranging from student loans to the mortgage interest deduction, from the employer health care exemption to Medicare. Most of the remaining 4 percent are too young yet to have benefited but will. We’re all beneficiaries.”

Schaller also commented for a Washington Post story recapping the election in Maryland and Gov. O’Malley’s prominent role in the passage of ballot measures on same-sex marriage rights, gambling and education for undocumented immigrants. “It was almost as though he was standing for a second reelection,” Schaller told the Post. “To a certain degree, his administration was on the ballot.”

In the wake of Maryland’s vote for Question 4, UMBC professors T.H. Gindling (economics) and Marvin Mandell (public policy) recently discussed their study, “Private and Government Fiscal Costs and Benefits of the Maryland Dream Act” on NBC Washington news. Their interview highlights the net positive economic impact that each incoming class of undocumented students would have, due to factors such as decreased incarceration rates (and thus lower incarceration costs) for college versus high school graduates.

Donald F. Norris, professor and chairman of UMBC’s Department of Public Policy, commented on Maryland’s passage of both Question 6 (approving same-sex marriage rights) and Question 7 (approving gambling expansion). Of Question 7 he remarked, “Frankly, I’m surprised that it passed statewide,” suggesting that voters might have been swayed by the promise of using increased gambling revenues to boost education funding.

Laura Hussey, assistant professor of political science, told Patch that Gov. O’Malley’s vocal leadership style might have encouraged voters to turn out for the issues he supports. “It’s only recently that we’ve seen Democratic leaders take strong stances on issues like the Dream Act,” Hussey said. “Eventually, some of their voters are going to follow behind them.”

Associate Professor of Visual Arts Timothy Nohe is one of ten artists selected to show work in the upcoming exhibition Nature in The Dark presented by the Center for Creative Arts in Melbourne, Australia. Nohe’s piece, At The Wall of the Anthropocene, is an animation set to an original film score, and will be available for view online beginning at the close of the exhibition’s screenings (which take place through December 23).

Nature in the Dark presents a rare intersection of scientific study and artistic practice; animals were “caught on camera” as part of a collection project, and the data was used by both artists and conservationists to very different ends. Nature in the Dark invited ten artists to respond, and presents their creative adaptations, remixes and interventions of the scientific footage of bush animals at night.

Nature in the Dark opens this Wednesday, November 21. Find more information about the exhibition and Tim’s contribution on the Center for Creative Art’s website.

Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccuping, and Beyond by Robert Provine, professor of psychology, was reviewed in the UK’s Times Higher Education on November 15.

“Provine fearlessly explores the borderlands of scientific experimentation by studying these non-verbal outputs of the body, these behaviours that hardly any funding agency would consider serious subjects for enquiry and that would barely elicit interest beyond the Ig Nobel Prize judges. Incidentally, Provine surely deserves an Ig Nobel, because those awards are given for research that first makes people laugh and then makes them think. That is exactly what he has been doing for most of his scientific career, and that is probably what we should do here: laugh first and then think.”

The full review can be read here.  Previous coverage of the book and Provine’s work can be found here.

One hundred and fifty years after the U.S. Civil War, a new secessionist movement is growing south of the border. On Friday, CBC radio’s “The Current” spoke with a man who wants his state to say secede from the union to protest the reelection of Barack Obama.

Contributing to the discussion was Anne Rubin, associate professor of history and expert on the Civil War, who spoke about the historical precedent for secession and whether it could happen today.

“Then, [secession] was a very legitimate way to read the constitution, and the states that did secede did so in a very careful and legalistic way,” she explained.

“The larger question of whether states can successfully secede from the union was settled by the Civil War. It’s not possible and it’s well-nigh impossible to form a new confederacy,” she said.

The entre conversation can be heard here.