In the Dead of Winter, a Stroke of Genius

Lewis C. Solmon, founding president of the Milken Institute economic think tank and an outspoken advocate of education reforms, including performance pay for teachers, has died. He was 65. Solmon died Monday at his West Los Angeles home as a result of a stroke.

Solmon, a UCLA professor emeritus, was dean of the university's Graduate School of Education and Information Studies from 1985 to 1991, when he became president of the Milken Institute. In 1997, he joined the Milken Family Foundation to focus on education issues and in 2005 became president of the foundation's nonprofit National Institute for Excellence in Teaching.

"Lew never wavered in his steadfast dedication and commitment to the pursuit of a high-quality education for all students," foundation chairman Lowell Milken said in a statement on the organization's Web site.

As we know, the human body requires a steady flow of warm blood. After that blood flow ceases, a dead body turns cold, as is surely the case with Solmon. But economists recently released a study on the effects of cold-weather on living people.

Moretti and Deschenes said that evidence suggests that people can get acclimatized to the cold. The recorded death rate was substantially larger in countries where people were exposed to 10 or fewer cold days a year and lower in counties that have at least 90 cold days a year, they said

No evidence yet points to men being more prone to "cold feet" at a Hawaiian Destination wedding than in the foothills of Alaska.

[San Jose Mercury News]
[UC Berkeley News]