It's Just A Blog

Follow Me

2010-09-30T23:59:00.001-05:00

For those who may be interested, you can follow me on Twitter @Westy33, where I every so often share some short bits of miscellany.

Health Care Overview

2010-03-24T22:02:00.000-05:00

So (that's the Minnesota way to start sentences) I thought this graphic by the Chicago Tribune was pretty helpful in understanding the impact the health care bill will have on us.

Personally, I'm in favor of many of these components. Thoughts?

School Achievement Success

2010-03-06T16:40:00.000-06:00

Upon reading this success story in the Chicago Tribune today, I couldn't help but post some excerpts to draw attention to this astounding bit of happy news.

Four years ago, the Urban Prep Academy began as an all black boys school in the neighborhood of Englewood here in Chicago. For those of us who know Chicago, we know this is a relatively tough area. As the first class graduates from the charter school, though, I think we can safely call the experiment a success.

Urban Prep, a charter school that enrolls using a lottery in one of the city's more troubled neighborhoods, faced difficult odds. Only 4 percent of this year's senior class read at grade level as freshmen.

Now, however, a much different picture of this school's students can be painted.

The entire senior class at Chicago's only public all-male, all-African-American high school has been accepted to four-year colleges. At last count, the 107 seniors had earned spots at 72 schools across the nation.

This in a city where overall the high school graduation rate alone amongst black males is only 38%. It is an inspiring example of the difference that can be made via an educational investment.

Baby #2

2010-02-14T16:05:00.000-06:00

The pages of this blog have slowly grown quieter. This is largely directly correlated to the addition of children into our home life. Time is at a far greater premium than it ever has been before. But, you know what, it's a good thing. And so for whatever it will mean for this blog, I don't care, because we've added another to the family.

Baby #2 arrived in our home on Groundhog Day. We welcome Annikah Kate, weighing in at 9 pounds, 13 ounces, with a length of 22 inches. She and mom are doing great, and I have to say, it's been a fun ride.

Stay tuned at WCW's for all the updates...

The Decade In Photos

2010-01-04T22:34:00.000-06:00

How about another 'decade in review' post. I thought I would point you to this fantastic compilation of news photographs from the '00s. Many are sobering, reminding us of the world we live in, but I think they do a pretty good job of reminding us of many of the most newsworthy happenings. And a lot happened, that's for sure.

The Noughts

2010-01-01T23:08:00.001-06:00

As we wrap up the decade that was, I'm a big sucker for reminiscing. So I'm loving all the posts collaborating on the 'best of' the decade. From movies to tech, I enjoy reading the lists and the recaps.

It was a big decade for me. I moved from basically being right out of high school to becoming an 'adult' with a family. There's been a lot of change, many adventures, and lots of fun, but throughout I've enjoyed what life has brought me. And that I will count as a blessing. Through the years, many of the items on these lists have proven to be companions to our life, and thus being reminded of them reminds me of what life has been.

Therefore, I would be remiss if I didn't point you others who may similarly enjoy these to The Noughtie List. Compiled at kottke.org, this list is basically a list of all the "best ofs" from the 2000s. There you go then, no more sappiness, enjoy this list of lists.

Where I Was - 2009

2009-12-30T23:08:00.000-06:00

Continuing the tradition from last several years, here's where I was in 2009:

Chicago, IL *
Champaign, IL
Indianapolis, IN
London, England
Dublin, Ireland
Ada, MI
Panora, IA
St. Paul, MN
Elbow Lake, MN
Battle Lake, MN
Alexandria, MN
Greenville, IL*
New York City, NY (Manhattan and Brooklyn)

How about you, where were you?

Criteria = One or more nights spent in each place. Those cities marked with an * were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days.

Photos the World Over

2009-11-26T23:57:00.000-06:00

On this Thanksgiving Day, I want to take the chance to point you towards some of the photos in the National Geographic's International Photography Contest. We live in a big world, and it's often good to remind us of that, in the midst of being thankful what we are blessed with. Enjoy the photos, and Happy Thanksgiving.

25 Years Later

2009-11-23T23:55:00.002-06:00

Twenty-five years ago, the #1 ranked high school basketball player in the nation was shot and killed. Ben Wilson's death resonated across the country. In the Sunday Chicago Tribune, he's remembered by K.C. Johnson who was a member of the Evanston basketball team that lost to Wilson's Simeon team in the state championship, in his last high school game. His violent death came to personify the rising violence that was part of the growing drug epidemic in Chicago. Today it's worth being reminded by the continued sadness at his death that unfortunately the problem of urban gun violence is not also a story of the past.

Ben is still probably not the most famous basketball player to wear #25, though. Another famous man born in the 60s who also wore #25 likely wins that honor, and now maybe has the chance to do something about the violence still ongoing.

On Stats (and Football)

2009-11-16T21:31:00.002-06:00

I cannot understand the outcry today over Bill Belichick's decision to 'go for it' in last night's game. Not a single media member that I have seen on TV has stopped to ponder whether it was a decent decision. Nope, they've been quick to pile on. Yes, the decision didn't work out. But let's not kid ourselves, it was unequivocally the right one.

As Nate Silver observes (yes, of PECOTA and 538 fame),

Bill Belichick is not dumb, provided that his goal is to help the New England Patriots win football games. Instead, much of the NFL's conventional wisdom on when to go for it on fourth down is horribly, horribly wrong -- teams are way too conservative and punt way too often. This is the one case where 9-year olds playing Madden -- it's no fun to punt in a video game -- quite literally make better decisions than most NFL head coaches. With that said, since the same flawed conventional wisdom can govern hiring and firing decisions, there may be a price to be paid for unconventional (if statistically correct) playcalling; see also Marty Mornhinweg.

If you follow that first link, it affirms--the Pats had a 79% chance of winning doing what they did, versus 70% by punting. So why is there outrage?

On Football, Part 2

2009-11-11T22:23:00.000-06:00

And worth reading as well, Malcom Gladwell, again on football.

On Football, Part 1

2009-11-10T22:59:00.001-06:00

Well worth reading is fellow far upper Midwesterner Chuck Klosterman on football.

Have You Ever Felt This Way?

2009-11-06T21:18:00.000-06:00

How Gangs are like Al-Qaeda

2009-10-25T22:38:00.001-05:00

Since my last post on the problem of violence amongst youngsters here in Chicago, there has been much rhetoric about "fixing" the problem. I don't think it's that simple.

But I do think this article was interesting and probably true. As he notes,

Understanding this may help us prevent future violence in our communities.

Wall Street's Billions

2009-10-21T22:44:00.000-05:00

The past quarter has been very good to the investment banks on Wall Street. JPMorgan Chase reported $3.6 billion in profit and Goldman Sachs came in at $3.2 billion. How have they been able to do this well with many other banks continuing to struggle, and the everyday citizen still feeling the effects of a tough economy?

Is it this simple?

(ht: kottke)

The Flu (Vaccine) Scare

2009-10-19T21:49:00.003-05:00

So far this year about 1,000 have died in the USA from the swine flue. Thankfully an effective safe vaccine exists to prevent the condition.

Wait, what? People don't want the vaccine? They fear it's part of a global government scheme to practice population control? That pharmaceutical companies are inserting additives to ensure people get sick again, thereby ensuring their future revenue? The Chicago Tribune ran an article detailing two mothers' choices in vaccinating or not, treating both as viable options. Conspiracy theories abound.

All the reliable research I have seen indicates vaccines, including this one, are safe. Thus, it has been surprising to me that such an uproar is being made in our country. I wonder if medicine has become too effective and our lives too comfortable if we take for granted the saving power medicine has in our lives. We live at the point in recorded human history at which life expectancy is the longest. And yet people question the very medical advances that have made this possible? It doesn't make sense to me. I wonder how many mothers will be glad they didn't get the vaccine when their child gets sick?

The world's greatest city?

2009-10-13T21:36:00.004-05:00

Which city do you think is the world's greatest? The editors of Time Out asked that question and here's their list:
1. New York
2. London
3. Paris
4. Berlin
5-tie. Barcelona
5-tie. Chicago
5-tie. Tokyo
8. Istanbul (not Constantinople)
9-tie. Rome
9-tie. Sidney

It's a fascinating list, and their reasoning seems good to me. I don't have many qualms with their rankings. The other fun thing on the site is that you can score the cities yourself. So for those of you who have travelled a lot, contribute away.

The Prodigal God

2009-10-12T21:33:00.002-05:00

As you can see on the right, I've just finished reading The Prodigal God. Because I've just been reading it, I've been thinking about it a lot, but let me just say that it's a great book. And thus, I wanted to use this forum to pass on the recommendation.

It's subtitled Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith, and I think that's an apt description. Tim Keller uses the parable of the Prodigal Sons to drive home the true message of the Gospel. If you're looking for a great synopsis of what the Christian message is all about, I highly recommend this book.

And if you think it's possibly mis-titled, you definitely need to read it.

The Beating Death of an Innocent

2009-09-29T21:31:00.003-05:00

Last Thursday on the far south side of Chicago, a 16-year old boy was beaten to death after stumbling into a gang fight. You've probably heard of this story.

The day after the incident, however, it didn't draw much attention. While mentioned on the news, it wasn't really 'news'. Unfortunately, the death of a young black man in a city doesn't bring the same attention most other murders do.

By the weekend, though, that began to change. But not for good reasons. On Saturday, Fox Chicago obtained a cell phone video showing the incident. Immediately, other news organizations picked up the story and showed stills from the video. All of a sudden, the police began to feel great pressure to act as the outcry cause by the brutality so apparent on the video was loud.

By Monday, the story had gone national. Links to it were found on the homepages of CNN, MSNBC, and a link to the video was the headline on Drudge. You see, this week Chicago is also finding out its Olympic fate. The combination of the ramifications of such a public brutal murder on the Olympic bid and the presence of the video itself meant the story was definitely now 'news'.

In a city where the murder of young black men is all too frequent, and usually overlooked, it is no longer the case. For now at least...

Think back to your own knowledge of this story. When did you find out about it? Was it just recently? Think about the implications media coverage has on what we deem important.

You see, this incident was not the only occurrence of innocent death at the end of last week. You may also have heard about this one, but more likely not. On Friday, two teens were gunned down in North Lawndale (one block from where several of my Little Leaguers have lived) on their front porch. There have been no arrests in this incident. And much less public outcry. Sadly, these college kids were not safe even at home and it doesn't seem to be that big a deal. There certainly isn't the national microscope on this incident. And I can't help but wonder, is that because there wasn't a dramatic violent video for these murders?

Until these tragedies are felt with the same emotion every time they occur as the beating death has wrought this week, we will have a problem. There is a scourge of violence amongst certain communities in our country, and work needs to be accelerated to end it. The equitable education of all our youngsters is a right we have not done enough to achieve. If anything good can come of these incidents, my prayer is that it results in fewer of them down the road.

Health Care

2009-09-09T22:42:00.002-05:00

As it seems like we all are taking some time to consider health care in our country, I thought this article was well worth passing on.

The Atlantic prefaces it this way:

After the needless death of his father, the author, a business executive, began a personal exploration of a health-care industry that for years has delivered poor service and irregular quality at astonishingly high cost. It is a system, he argues, that is not worth preserving in anything like its current form. And the health-care reform now being contemplated will not fix it. Here’s a radical solution to an agonizing problem.

With no further ado, an article some have called a must-read, How American Health Care Killed My Father.

(ht: JT)

In Defense of HSR

2009-09-03T21:43:00.001-05:00

Good analysis by Yonah Freemark on why High Speed Rail has potential.

The Ricky Rubio Situation

2009-09-01T22:23:00.004-05:00

A lot of fanfare is being made out of the fact that Ricky Rubio is not going to be coming to NBA and play with the Timberwolves this year after all. Many are blaming David Kahn for the situation. Personally, I think that's shortsighted. The only upside in my mind to him coming over now would have been drawing more fans. Maybe that would be a good thing, but for the future of the Wolves, I think Rubio developing for another couple years in Spain is fine.

Let's be honest, the Wolves aren't making the playoffs next year, and probably not the year after that either. So what is it setting them back? If they find out what they have in Flynn, they're that much further along. Many, such as The Sports Guy have been pretty down on Kahn. Simmons recently posted on Twitter, "Hey Kahn defenders: You think a team that's BLEEDING MONEY wanted to bottom out again, take on bad salaries & wait 2 yrs for Rubio? Really?" This was the latest in several posts directed at Kahn's maneuvering. I disagree, and so here's what I wrote The Sports Guy:

Okay Bill,
We need you to write a little further on this Timberwolves situation. As a fan (yes, I know that makes me biased) I think you're being a little harsh in regard to their draft results.

I'm with you in thinking Kahn deserved to be questioned based on his lack of experience. But now that we have him, let's see what happens.

You've said yourself (in the New Yorker): "Just play your best five or six guys and figure the rest out later. In the old days, nobody gave a crap about positions." You've also said that teams in the draft should take the best available player and not draft for need. So why so down on the Wolves for taking the two players they thought were the best left on the draft board? You've said yourself that you like both Rubio and Flynn. And based on the LV league, I think I'd still rather have Flynn than Curry. Are both players PG? Yes. But how disastrous would it be to play two great PGs together? Would a team be terrible if they played Chris Paul and Deron Williams together with a great wing, a great inside scorer, and a great rebounder?

What if Rubio and Flynn are nearly as good as the aforementioned? With a good shooter on the wing (Ellington) and the scorer and rebounder extraordinaire inside (Jefferson and Love), how far away are you from being a legit presence in the league?
I can think of much worse combinations. And further, if Rubio or Flynn do not pan out, you are still not in bad shape. I think the Wolves thought, and I think correctly so, we're not good enough to draft for need, let's take the best players available, and in a couple years, figure out which parts to keep in order to turn this thing into a championship.

I'd further note that I have to agree with what what Ken Berger of CBSSports observes in regard to the situation:

So Rubio will mature and get better -- albeit against sub-NBA competition -- and Kahn's team will begin the rebuilding process with a very capable point guard in Flinn. Can the two play together in the same backcourt in 2011-12? Time will tell. But in the meantime, Kahn moves forward with a formidable asset in Rubio. Even if he never plays a single game in Minnesota.

Kahn is quickly becoming the most mysterious executive in the NBA, tearing a page straight from the book written by his mentor, Donnie Walsh. He is humorless and needs to brush up on his people skills -- despite the fact that he's a former member of the media. (Maybe this explains why he is a former member.) But I'll give him credit for this much: It took a certain amount of gumption to welcome a controversy like this with the very first and most important decision of his regime. Whether it ultimately works out or not is very much an unknown. Say Kahn is in over his head if you want; you might ultimately be correct. But I have no problem giving Kahn credit for being unafraid of Fegan and all the contractual entanglements that came with Rubio. Enjoy Barcelona, Ricky. See you in 2011.

What are your thoughts?

I'm Famous... Kind Of

2009-08-18T22:10:00.002-05:00

So I'm overly excited to share some unexceptional news. I've now been featured on not one, but two of my favorite blogs. As those who follow the blog closely, about three years ago, an exchange I had with Henry Abbott at TrueHoop was posted on his well read (the best NBA blog, bar none) blog.

Now, though, I've gotten exposure on one of the top blogs in existence.

Yep, Westy is quoted on the Freakonomics blog. Enjoy reading the extremely deep question I asked... Hey, at least I inspired the title.

What Did You Do Last Night?

2009-08-09T21:06:00.002-05:00

Chances are, if it was between 2:20 and 3:50, you were sleeping. Between those times, the greatest number of people in America are sleeping, at 95%. That was by far the highest percentage of people doing the same thing at the same time at any point in the day. Next highest was from 10:20 to 11:00 when 33% of people were working.

You can glean these and many other fascinating tidbits from this captivating chart from the NYT.

Movie of the Decade?

2009-08-04T23:35:00.001-05:00

Last week, some of us were discussing what the movie of the decade (the '00s) was, now that it's almost over. And yes, we were inspired by the Bill Simmons article on the subject.

So, of course, I'm curious; what are your favorite movies of the decade? For those curious, here is a list of the Oscar winning films from these years:

2009 Slumdog Millionaire
2008 No Country for Old Men
2007 The Departed
2006 Crash
2005 Million Dollar Baby
2004 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2003 Chicago
2002 A Beautiful Mind
2001 Gladiator

Others to consider?

Almost Famous
the Bourne Trilogy
Finding Nemo
The Incredibles
Batman Begins
The Dark Knight
Spiderman 2
Bowling for Columbine
Juno
Traffic
Memento
Gran Torino
Mystic River
Spellbound
Born Into Brothels
Little Miss Sunshine
Napolean Dynamite
Once

What is your best-loved? I will post my own favorites to the comments in the next couple days.

Chicago Then and Now

2009-07-13T22:21:00.009-05:00

On Friday night we were for the first time this season taking in a show at Millennium Park. A fellow concert goer and I were admiring the awe-inspiring view from the venue, and as we were discussing what a positive the park is, we reflected back on how far it's come. I think it's a history many may be unfamiliar with, and so I thought it would be worth a march back in time...

The area now including Millennium and Grant Parks actually didn't really exist prior to the Chicago Fire of 1871. As a result of that catastrophe, landfill and trash were dumped at what was then the lakefront creating more shore, and creating a landfill area that would become these parks. By 1890, here's what the area looked like.

By the mid-20th century, though, the area had been overrun by railroads, parking lots, and poor planning. Come the mid-1980s, things were looking a little better, but what's today Millennium Park was still pretty much just a railroad yard.

With the completion of Millennium Park and now the Modern Wing of the Art Institute this decade, however, the area has become a world-class destination.

Ruins of Humanity

2009-07-06T22:09:00.005-05:00

Whenever I have had the chance to tour ruins of old manmade fortresses, I have been moved by the history, the decay, and the omnipresence of change we see throughout our lives. Interestingly, ruins don't have to be all that old to inspire some pretty good reflection on humanity. Last week, the New York Times featured a photo essay documenting the stall of development in the USA in our current recession. Its images are haunting.

It actually reminded me of another photo essay of lost grandeur I also recently viewed documenting Detroit's fall.

Together these groups of photos serve as a healthy reminder that our lives here are pretty temporal.

Ring Roads

2009-06-04T23:16:00.003-05:00

This image produced by the Rice School of Architecture is pretty cool.

They note it shows the "ring roads from 27 international cities and layered...at the same scale. As it turn[s] out, Houston has the largest system of those...surveyed. (Beijing was second)"

I'll leave the interpretations to you.

(ht: Kottke)

Earth From Above

2009-05-20T23:09:00.003-05:00

As a huge fan of Yann Arthus-Bertrand's Earth From Above, I wanted to take the chance to point you to these fantastic photos by Jason Hawkes. My favorites are #8 and 23. Yours?

Let Your Kids Roam Free

2009-05-19T22:09:00.003-05:00

One thing I don't want to be is a hovering parent. Thus, I enjoyed this article on allowing your kids to have 'free-range'.

She notes,

There is a 1 in 1.5 million chance that your kid would be abducted and killed by a stranger. It is hard to wrap your mind around those numbers, and everybody always assumes: What if it's my 1 in 1.5 million?

If you don't want to have your child in any kind of danger, you really can't do anything. You certainly couldn't drive them in a car, because that's the No. 1 way kids die, as passengers in car accidents.

Certainly, let's consider the benefits allowing our children some independence will bring.

Prospects

2009-05-11T22:32:00.003-05:00

I've written before about the recruiting world of high school basketball. And as most who follow it know, it's only beginning earlier and earlier for today's young players.

In a pretty interesting article on three young 8th-graders who will be going to high school in Chicago next year, Michael O'Brien of the Sun-Times notes,

High school basketball is undergoing a dramatic shift. The focus on younger players likely is here to stay and figures to intensify over the next few years.

More players are committing to colleges as freshmen, which means college coaches, recruiting analysts and the media have begun to pay serious attention to seventh- and eighth-grade players.

I'm just looking forward to watching these guys play next year. And if they end up in the orange & blue in four years, even better.

Dante

2009-05-07T22:19:00.002-05:00

So, the Las Vegas Sun reports,

Geographers from Kansas State University did a study called 'The Spatial Distribution of the Seven Deadly Sins.'

Hmm, well, what does that mean? It means you have some pretty interesting maps showing their respective prevalence, that's what it means. From what I can tell, Chicago's biggest problem is with greed. Check it out.

Press

2009-05-05T23:09:00.003-05:00

My high school team did it. And I'm a pretty big proponent. I love the run and gun that results.

Although, probably not for junior high, where I think it should be about more than winning.

Pressing in basketball. Just thinking about it, I bet you envisioned an exciting game. So, is it underused?

Malcom Gladwell thinks so. Definitely read the article. It's moreso an analysis of how an underdog can optimize their chances of success. But very interesting, as always.

Reading Material

2009-04-14T21:19:00.002-05:00

So, I'm off to London tomorrow. For a long-awaited family vacation. I'm definitely looking forward to it. I'll provide you a recap in a couple weeks.

For now, though, let me leave you with a link to this story to occupy the interim. Enjoy this tale of an unknown soldier whose last living sight was of the extremely emotional kind.

(ht: Kottke)

Reinventing America's Cities

2009-03-31T21:23:00.003-05:00

Some have asserted that today's economic situation presents an opportunity to reformulate the usual means with which the country's infrastructure is paid for and the focus of the improvements. The very physical structure of our country may again need to be shifted. Indeed, there is no doubt that the way things worked last decade is now outdated. As stated by Richard Florida in the article I linked below,

But another crucial aspect of the crisis has been largely overlooked, and it might ultimately prove more important. Because America’s tendency to overconsume and under-save has been intimately intertwined with our postwar spatial fix—that is, with housing and suburbanization—the shape of the economy has been badly distorted, from where people live, to where investment flows, to what’s produced. Unless we make fundamental policy changes to eliminate these distortions, the economy is likely to face worsening handicaps in the years ahead.

Suburbanization—and the sprawling growth it propelled—made sense for a time. The cities of the early and mid-20th century were dirty, sooty, smelly, and crowded, and commuting from the first, close-in suburbs was fast and easy. And as manufacturing became more technologically stable and product lines matured during the postwar boom, suburban growth dovetailed nicely with the pattern of industrial growth. Businesses began opening new plants in green-field locations that featured cheaper land and labor; management saw no reason to continue making now-standardized products in the expensive urban locations where they’d first been developed and sold. Work was outsourced to then-new suburbs and the emerging areas of the Sun Belt, whose connections to bigger cities by the highway system afforded rapid, low-cost distribution. This process brought the Sun Belt economies (which had lagged since the Civil War) into modern times, and sustained a long boom for the United States as a whole.

But that was then; the economy is different now...

Along these lines, the NYT ran this fascinating article outlining some visions for reinventing the city in America. Using four examples, in New Orleans, Buffalo, LA, and the Bronx, ideas for rebuilding, reformulating, and reinvigorating our cities are examined. Using good planning and smart design, these changes can not only bring rejuvenation to an individual city, but collectively to our country.

The U.S. Economy Does Not Exist

2009-03-29T21:16:00.003-05:00

So says the headline on this short snippet describing a study that claims,

The United States is not a single unified economy nor even a breakdown of 50 state economies. Instead, the country's 100 largest metropolitan regions are the real drivers of economic activity, generating two-thirds of the nation's jobs and three-quarters of its output. The sooner we reorient federal economic policies to support this "MetroNation," the quicker we can fix the mess we're in.

It's an intriguing idea, and one that actually makes sense. Chicago, for instance, would be the world's 18th largest economy if it were a country, right after Turkey and before Sweden. And with the economic climate the way it is, there is little doubt that the 'crisis' will affect different metropolitan areas in varying ways.

Richard Florida examined this idea in a fascinating article called How the Crash Will Reshape America. He observes,

The crash of 2008 continues to reverberate loudly nationwide—destroying jobs, bankrupting businesses, and displacing homeowners. But already, it has damaged some places much more severely than others. On the other side of the crisis, America’s economic landscape will look very different than it does today. What fate will the coming years hold for New York, Charlotte, Detroit, Las Vegas? Will the suburbs be ineffably changed? Which cities and regions can come back strong? And which will never come back at all?

Our Past

2009-03-26T22:30:00.003-05:00

I've spent some time over the past few years working on my genealogy. It's fun, but definitely some work. No matter who we are, I'm pretty sure most of us have some pretty interesting stories in our families' past. Part of the fun tracking down our ancestors is learning their stories.

Since I have some of that interest, I had a soft spot for this fantastic story that ties together a family's immigration story and Chicago.

Iceland Melts Down

2009-03-10T22:35:00.003-05:00

Michael Lewis has written a fantastic article documenting the downfall of Iceland's financial system. I fully expect this piece to be in his upcoming book, and it is well worth reading to further understand the global interactions that led to the place we've come to.

He observes,

An entire nation without immediate experience or even distant memory of high finance had gazed upon the example of Wall Street and said, “We can do that.”

Abandoned Real Estate

2009-03-05T22:59:00.004-06:00

One of the byproducts of the big real estate slowdown is that many homes and buildings for which the owners can no longer afford payment are being foreclosed upon. Subsequently, they are abandoned. There's probably no more visible display of the downturn than neighborhoods filled with empty buildings.

Mint's blog has done a great job documenting some of these locations in this post. Kind of eery, really. And for a more extensive treatment of the issue, this weekend's NYT magazine features an article on the abandoned homes problem in Cleveland by one of my favorite authors, Alex Kotlowitz.

Robinson Crusoe

2009-03-04T23:52:00.002-06:00

Did you know Robinson Crusoe was based on a real man?

Generations of children have been spellbound by Robinson Crusoe's exploits, but few are aware of the real-life figure who inspired the classic. Now, 300 years after he left his island prison, scientists have pieced together how the real Crusoe managed to survive.

Meet Alexander Selkirk.

Congo

2009-03-02T21:13:00.003-06:00

As you can see at the right, I'm currently reading a book called King Leopold's Ghost. It's a fantastic and educational book telling of the genocide around the turn of last century in what today is Congo. The chilling stories and abuse are heartwrenching even today.

And it becomes even moreso when we see evidence today of the continuing suffering the people of this region are experiencing. The excellent blog, The Big Picture, has documented over the last few months some of the difficulties there.

Entry #1 (the most moving picture to me-- #19)

Entry #2 (#4 and #5)

Entry #3 (#33)

Calvin Explains The World Today

2009-02-24T22:29:00.001-06:00

Some people are always a bit ahead of their time. And I think this strip proves that Bill Watterson undoubtedly is one of those people.

Is Talent Born or Made?

2009-02-22T14:47:00.003-06:00

This age-old question has arisen again in a slightly different format. Research has shown that what often separates superstars from everyday performers is just practice. Obviously, that makes a pretty good story. Most of the stories on this subject reference the work of Anders Ericsson, who has advanced some of this thought.

But can it be that any of us has the potential to be great, if only we had put in the time? This is basically the question Malcom Gladwell tackles in his latest book called Outliers, which ponders the question of how a person who's an outlier comes to be so. As you can see on the right, it's a book I recently read, and I would definitely recommend. In my opinion, while he does somewhat shortchange the role of genetics in the production of talent, nonetheless, it's a great summary of research in the area. And if it's a topic that you find interesting, there are several recent books that discuss it as well.

The Places We Live

2009-02-08T15:44:00.003-06:00

Today, I aim only to point you to this, a stunning site, which reminds us of our own blessings while educating us about the world we live in.

Wired Education

2009-02-06T22:51:00.003-06:00

I was excited to hear there are now college classes on one of our favorite TV shows, The Wire. From the course description:

Discerning critics and avid fans have agreed that the five-season run of Ed Burns and David Simon's The Wire was "the best TV show ever broadcast in America"--not the most popular but the best. The 60 hours that comprise this episodic series have been aptly been compared to Dickens, Balzac, Dreiser and Greek Tragedy. These comparisons attempt to get at the richly textured complexity of the work, its depth, its bleak tapestry of an American city and its diverse social stratifications. Yet none of these comparisons quite nails what it is that made this the most compelling "show" on TV and better than many of the best movies. This class will explore these comparisons, analyze episodes from the first, third, fourth and fifth seasons and try to discover what was and is so great about The Wire. We will screen as much of the series as we can during our mandatory screening sessions and approach it through the following lenses: the other writing of David Simon, including his journalism, an exemplary Greek Tragedy, Dickens' Bleak House and/or parts of Balzac's Human Comedy. We will also consider the formal tradition of episodic television.

Unfortunately, college days are long over for me, and so I won't be able to take said classes. But if you have the option, make sure you do. But at the very least, just go out and rent the DVDs already. And really, that's probably good enough.

(ht: Kottke)

Mass Transit Spending

2009-02-05T21:56:00.003-06:00

Obviously there is a lot of back and forth going on right now as to what exactly the stimulus bill will contain. I will admit that as a transportation design professional I am admittedly biased. I would love to see as much transportation spending as possible.

But I would especially love to see a large influx of funds marked for mass transit spending use. As our nation looks at the role transportation will play in its future, I am a big proponent of the positives an efficient nationwide mass transit system will bring. This article does a better job than I would making this case, and so I encourage you to go check it out. And if you have the opportunity, talk to your representatives and urge them to do what they can to increase transit funding.

The Evil Behind the Smiles

2009-02-02T22:15:00.003-06:00

Recently, I posted about the ongoing problem of slavery in the world today. Now, I strongly encourage you to read Nicholas Kristof's latest columns about sexual slavery in southeast Asia in order to become more informed.

The columns and associated videos are informative but heartwrenching. After seeing the movie Taken, which depicts the similar problem in Europe and reading these columns, there's no doubt that I'm motivated to see change come for these women. The cruelty exhibited and sad reality so many of these women face is disturbing.

Do your part, get informed, and make a difference!

Blago

2009-01-26T21:34:00.003-06:00

As I have pointed out before (really, go re-read that one), the fine governor of our fine state of Illinois, Mr. Rod Blagojevich, is a bit on the odd side. (You don't say?)

Today he was making the media rounds (you know, the typical serious venues for someone accused of simple things like impeachment, The View, etc.), attempting to explain away whatever utter foolishness was captured on tape by the feds last year. Does anyone think this is working?

On Friday, he again gave us a quote that is perplexing enough to be funny. The AP explained:

Blagojevich, a fan of Western movies, drew a long analogy Friday between his situation and that of a cowboy falsely accused of stealing a horse. His story ended with one cowboy suggesting the accused thief be hanged, with the other suggesting he first be tried, then hanged.

Not to sell it short, here's the full quote from the governor himself:

Now, I like old movies and I like old cowboy movies, and I want to explain how these rules work in a more understandable way. There was an old saying in the Old West. There was a cowboy who was charged with stealing a horse in town. And some of the other cowboys, especially the guy whose horse was stolen, were very unhappy with that guy. And one of the cowboys said, "Let's hang him." Then the other cowboys said, "Hold on. Before we hang him, let's first give him a fair trial. Then we'll hang him." Under these rules, I'm not even getting a fair trial. They're just hanging me. And when they hang me under these rules, that prevent due process, they're hanging the 12 million people of Illinois who twice have elected a governor.

Now, they may be for or against me. They may like me or not. But the people of Illinois have every right to expect that the decision they've made when they have chosen a governor, if he or she is going to be removed from office, that the process ought to at least have fundamental fairness and have all the safeguards that our Constitution guarantees to all of our citizens. Under these rules, Rule 15F and Rule 8B, under that fact pattern I just gave you, if the cowboy who's charged with stealing a horse was charged with doing that in town, but in fact on the date and time that he apparently stole the horse in town he was on the ranch with six other cowboys herding cattle and roping steers, and then he expects that when his day comes to go to court he can bring those six cowboys to say it wasn't him because he wasn't in town, he was on the ranch herding cattle -- even if he could bring those cowboys in to say that, under these rules, under 8B, it wouldn't matter. The complaint that charged him with stealing the horse would convict him because you can't challenge it and you can't have a chance to be able to contest it. Again, not fair; in fact, worse: trampling on constitutional rights.

Wow. Just wow. Mayor Daley had only one word to describe this turn of events...

Volkswagen Hacked

2009-01-19T21:41:00.003-06:00

In the midst of the rest of the financial meltdown, one of the most incredible stories in the financial world has largely been forgotten.

Now, laid out clearly is the story of how Porsche hacked the financial system and made a killing on Volkswagen. Wow, what a tale, and what a sad ending.

Burger Chains

2009-01-15T23:02:00.002-06:00

Recently, several national fast food hamburger joints have opened their first branch in Chicagoland. The Trib has the rundown.

All I would add is, In-N-Out please?

2010

2009-01-05T21:04:00.003-06:00

Only one year away now. That's kind of astounding for a lot of reasons. But, it could potentially be a history-making year if one Russian professor's predictions comes true.

For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010... that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S.

Considering the recent economic malaise, people are paying a little more attention than usual. Here's how he says it would go:

[Ongoing] mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

Here's a map of the USA as he sees it being by then:

So what do you think are the chances he's correct?

Obama's Infrastructure Impact

2009-01-04T21:24:00.001-06:00

As an infrastructure design engineer, my coworkers and I have been watching with great interest the plans President Elect Obama has been working on for an economic stimulus package that will include vast infrastructure spending. While a bill such as this would obviously be good for business, I'm more excited for it on the results side. I truly think that investments in well designed infrastructure are vital components in building our future. These are the sort of physical investments that not only add character to communities, but add livability.

As Obama has prepared to take office, it has become clear that investment in cities will be a tangible aspect of his policy. Several of his Cabinet selections are, I think, good selections from this point of view. Considering he's from here and adding on the possibility of the Olympics, I'm very excited about the possible future investments Chicago is going to see. Certainly there is an aspect of that excitement that is very self-interested, but I think this investment will prove to be valuable to all residents. And similar investments across the country will likewise prove very worthwhile, in my opinion.

Where I Was - 2008

2009-01-02T22:40:00.018-06:00

Continuing the tradition from last year, here's where I was in 2008:

Chicago, IL *
Marble Falls, TX
San Antonio, TX
Livermore, CA
Greenville, IL *
Lake Geneva, WI
Indianapolis, IN
LaGrange, IL
St. Paul, MN

Hmm, somewhat shorter again. Apparently we need to make some trips. I'm sure we'll get to it in a few decades.

How about you, where were you?

Criteria = One or more nights spent in each place. Those cities marked with an * were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days.

Murders down, except...

2008-12-28T23:34:00.004-06:00

...amongst young black males.

The article notes that it is hoped that new resources can be used to stem this tide. What will work, though? Is it reasonable to expect murders to drop amongst all demographics?

It's worth noting also, as Steven Levitt observes, that the statistics are somewhat misleading.

A World Enslaved

2008-12-21T21:25:00.003-06:00

There are now more slaves on the planet than at any time in human history.

Disheartening isn't it? Indeed, Buying a slave in Haiti takes just a few minutes...

But the deal isn't done. Benavil leans in close. "This is a rather delicate question. Is this someone you want as just a worker? Or also someone who will be a 'partner'? You understand what I mean?"

You don't blink at being asked if you want the child for sex. "I mean, is it possible to have someone that could be both?"

"Oui!" Benavil responds enthusiastically.

If you're interested in taking your purchase back to the United States, Benavil tells you that he can "arrange" the proper papers to make it look as though you've adopted the child.

Certainly I hope that we all take a moment to consider how we can help the slaves of the world.

(ht: Kottke)

Black and White

2008-12-15T20:21:00.005-06:00

Barack Obama:

Black or white?

Congressman G.K. Butterfield:
Black or white?

I just read an interesting article that discusses our president-elect's racial makeup. It notes that,

Many people insist that 'the first black president' is actually not black.

It goes on to discuss the fact that people sometimes view people of mixed races differently, which I don't think is a surprise. But nonetheless, it's a pretty interesting article, and it casts some light on the above questions. Personally, I find it intriguing that just based on a person's actions, they can choose their identity if they are of mixed race.

It reminds me of a great short essay by David Matthews from the NYT a couple years ago. Ultimately, according to him, racial identification can come down to a choice.

The Best of LIFE

2008-12-11T21:24:00.004-06:00

Google recently began hosting all the photos ever used for LIFE Magazine. Some of these are amongst the most famous American photos ever taken, and most are fantastic.

A blog has begun documenting some of the best of these LIFE photos. Of those posted recently, the below is amongst my favorites. Head on over and find yours.

Madrid scenes de rue

(ht: Kottke)

The Wisdom and Sublety of Kids

2008-12-08T20:44:00.005-06:00

Discussing Obama

2008-12-03T20:49:00.003-06:00

So last night, as has been usual for the last month, some friends and us were discussing Obama. A couple interesting references emerged, and so I thought I'd pass them on. Some of the most interesting articles about Obama are actually interviews with him. It's much better to hear precisely what somebody thinks straight from their mouth as opposed to being rehashed by a journalist. Thus, here are a couple very interesting interviews that highlight some interesting statements by Obama.

First, just before the election, Rolling Stone interviewed the now president-elect. Some highlights include:

At your campaign stop this morning at a high school in Pennsylvania, you made what you called a "solemn vow to the young people of America" that you will make sure they can afford to go to college — "no ifs, ands or buts." How will you do that in a way that doesn't simply add to the crushing debt that students and their families already take on in the form of student loans?
We're going to give a $4,000 tuition credit to every student, every year, in exchange for a minimum of 100 hours of community service a year. That's above and beyond the additional scholarships we're offering for people who are willing to teach, nurses — there are certain categories and occupations where we have a shortage, so there will be targeted scholarships there.

If you're in the White House and could install any one play toy — bowling alley, water polo — what would it be?
Basketball court. If we can get an indoor basketball court, I'd be happy.

Indoor?
Yeah, just because the weather's kind of fickle in Washington.

In what way will people underestimate you as president?
[Long pause] Because I tend to be a pretty courteous person and I don't lose my temper, I think people underestimate my willingness to mix it up. I don't know if they'll continue to underestimate that after this campaign, but I think you'll still get columns saying, "He's too cool, he's too soft." [Laughs] That's OK, actually.

You like being underestimated in that way.
Yeah. No point in having them see you coming.

Second, a few years ago when Obama was running for Senate, he gave an interview on religion to Chicago Sun Times columnist Cathleen Falsani. Now, it's finally been republished in entirety. Some interesting lines:

FALSANI:
What do you believe?

OBAMA:
I am a Christian.

So, I have a deep faith. So I draw from the Christian faith.

FALSANI:
So you got yourself born again?

OBAMA:
Yeah, although I don't, I retain from my childhood and my experiences growing up a suspicion of dogma. And I'm not somebody who is always comfortable with language that implies I've got a monopoly on the truth, or that my faith is automatically transferable to others.

I'm a big believer in tolerance. I think that religion at it's best comes with a big dose of doubt. I'm suspicious of too much certainty in the pursuit of understanding just because I think people are limited in their understanding.

FALSANI:
The conversation stopper, when you say you're a Christian and leave it at that.

OBAMA:
Where do you move forward with that?

This is something that I'm sure I'd have serious debates with my fellow Christians about. I think that the difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and prostelytize. There's the belief, certainly in some quarters, that people haven't embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior that they're going to hell.

FALSANI:
You don't believe that?

OBAMA:
I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell.

I can't imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity.

That's just not part of my religious makeup.

Thoughts?

Woolly Mammoths

2008-11-20T22:48:00.004-06:00

Okay, this would be awesome!

Scientists are talking for the first time about the old idea of resurrecting extinct species as if this staple of science fiction is a realistic possibility, saying that a living mammoth could perhaps be regenerated for as little as $10 million.

Not only could woolly mammoths be brought back, but,

The same would be technically possible with Neanderthals, whose full genome is expected to be recovered shortly...

Jurassic Park anyone?

Politics

2008-11-15T20:32:00.003-06:00

So now that the election's over (yep, Obama won), we can all settle down and get back to all the other things we discuss. What? You want to keep talking about politics? Well, here you go then.

In this season of evaluation of where each party is at (or in the Republicans' case, where they're not at), I think it's useful to look at the errors in worldview members of wings in both parties tend to make.

J. Budziszewski is a professor of Government and Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. About ten years ago, he wrote a couple articles for First Things. The first is entitled The Problem With Conservatism. In it he sets forth eight moral errors of political conservatism. He then contrasts the political conservative trajectory with the biblical worldview. Here are the errors:

Civil Religionism: America is a chosen nation, and its projects are a proper focus of religious aspiration. Christianity: America is but one nation among many, no less loved by God, but no more.
Instrumentalism: Faith should be used for the ends of the state. Christianity: Believers should be good citizens, but faith is not a tool.
Moralism: God's grace needs the help of the state. Christianity: Merely asks that the state get out of the way.
Caesarism: The laws of man are higher than the laws of God. Christianity: The laws of God are higher than the laws of man.
Traditionalism: What has been done is what should be done. Christianity: Any merely human custom may have to be repented.
Neutralism: Everyone ought to mind his own business, therefore moral and religious judgments should be avoided. Christianity: While one ought to mind his own business, moral and religious judgments can never be avoided.
Mammonism: Wealth is the object of commonwealth, and its continual increase even better. Christianity: Wealth is a snare, and its continual increase even worse.
Meritism: I should do unto others as they deserve. Christianity: I should do unto others not as they deserve, but as they need.

So they wouldn't feel left out, he also wrote an article entitled The Problem With Liberalism. Its points:

Propitiationism: I should do unto others as they want. Christianity: I should do unto others as they need.
Expropiationism: I may take from others to help the needy, giving nothing of my own. Christianity: I should give of my own to help the needy, taking from no one.
Solipsism: Human beings make themselves, belong to themselves, and have value in and of themselves. Christianity: Human beings are made by God, belong to Him, and have value because they are loved by Him and made in His image.
Absolutism: We cannot be blamed when we violate the moral law, either because we cannot help it, because we have no choice, or because it is our choice. Christianity: We must be blamed, because we are morally responsible beings.
Perfectionism: Human effort is adequate to cure human evil. Christianity: Our sin, like our guilt, can be erased only by the grace of God through faith in Christ.
Universalism: The human race forms a harmony whose divisions are ultimately either unreal or unimportant. Christianity: Human harmony has been shattered by sin and cannot be fully healed by any means short of conversion.
Neutralism: The virtue of tolerance requires suspending judgments about good and evil. Christianity: The virtue of tolerance requires making judgments about good and evil.
Collectivism: The state is more important to the child than the family. Christianity: The family is more important to the child than the state.
The Fallacy of Desperate Gestures: "The perfectionist acts, at least in the beginning, from a desire to relieve someone else's pain. The desperationist acts to relieve his own: the pain of pity, the pain of impotence, the pain of indignation. He is like a man who beats on a foggy television screen with a pipe wrench, not because the wrench will fix the picture but because it is handy and feels good to use."

Thoughts? Do these points resonate with you?

(ht: JT)

One week from now...

2008-10-29T23:13:00.001-05:00

Next Wednesday, approximately half the country will be celebrating their candidate's victory. Who will emerge victorious?

Christian Hip Hop

2008-10-19T21:12:00.003-05:00

Several years ago, I had the pleasure of being introduced to the music of Grits. They're a southern Christian rap group, and I loved their sound.

Shortly thereafter, I began hearing about Lecrae, another Christian hip hop artist. At the time, I think he may have been new on the scene, but I again loved the music.

Thus, I definitely enjoyed this interview of Lecrae by Mark Driscoll. If you've ever wondered if there's any good Christian hip hop out there, look no further.

Link of the Day -- Time's Top 25 Blogs

2008-10-02T22:52:00.002-05:00

So if you're sitting here wondering what other blogs out there you should be adding to your reader, look no further than this list of the current Top 25 blogs by Time Magazine. Enjoy.

Go Cubs Go

2008-09-23T23:50:00.001-05:00

I enjoyed this synopsis on the My Baseball Fantasy blog of the origins of the Cubs' postgame victory tune, "Go Cubs Go."

If you don't know the full story, definitely check it out. It's almost playoff time...

Golden Parachutes

2008-09-20T21:28:00.003-05:00

Last week in the financial sector was crazy. Stocks, of which I own several just for fun, were nuts.

Huge companies have failed, and the major investment banks have quickly shrunk in number. I have been struck, though, by the fact that CEOs of these failed companies are still walking away with wealth. Even if stockholders and the average employee are not, the leaders seem to be doing alright.

In an article called How the Masters of the Universe ran amok and cost us the earth, explaining the Lehman Brothers failure, The Scotsman details the walkaway pay many of these CEOs garnered:

Fuld [Lehman's CEO] joined the bulge bracket. He was paid $34.5 million in 2005, comprising a base salary of $750,000, a $13.8 million cash bonus, and stock and options worth $19.94 million.

So how does his demise compare with the other fallen idols who have now fled the crashing debris in Wall Street? They may have driven their banks – and their shareholders – into enormous losses. But the former Masters of the Universe will never know what it's like to live in a subprime home.

By the end, 62-year-old Fuld was Lehman's biggest individual stockholder. Despite the crash, he stands to leave with about $65 million, based on Lehman's Friday morning stock price of $3.73. This tally includes 8.6 million unrestricted shares worth some $32.1 million as of Friday morning – though they had been worth $582 million last November before the credit crunch hurricane struck.

Chuck ("I'm still dancing") Prince left Citigroup with a package said to be worth $40 million. He also received a pension of $1.74 million and another one million stock options – worthless at the time of his departure. Merrill Lynch's Stan O'Neal spent much of last summer perfecting his golf swing, confident that his trusty lieutenants at Merrill could avoid those subprime bunkers. It turned out to be a bad call.

HE WAS ousted last October as the first waves of the credit crunch struck, with a retirement package reckoned at more than $160 million.

Jimmy Cayne, 15 years at the top of Bear Stearns, was said to be on the golf course in June 2006 just as the bank dropped the first of many clangers, with a 10 per cent dive in profits. Worse followed, with the bank having to put up $3.2 billion to try to rescue its imploding hedge fund.

By mid-March last year, when the bank collapsed, Cayne, who would rush from Wall Street by chopper to the private Hollywood Golf Club in New Jersey to play 18 holes before dark, had already relinquished the reins, handing over the chief executive's role to Alan Schwartz.

When Schwartz went cap in hand to the New York Fed for a $30 billion bail-out, Cayne was said to be competing in the North American Bridge Championship in Detroit.

Cayne and his wife, Patricia, sold all their 5.6 million shares in Bear Stearns – worth as much as $1.2 billion in January 2007 – for $61.3 million at the end of March this year. The couple recently bought two adjacent apartments in New York's plush Plaza building for $28.2 million.

He left with a $30 million "golden goodbye" – enough to do up his Park Avenue property and a mock Tudor mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. But it emerged that the mansion, set in 2.3 acres of land, was surplus to requirements. "It no longer meets his needs,'' said the local estate agent, trying to sell it for $6.15 million. He was forced to cut the asking price.

That's how tough it gets at the top in Wall Street.

Hmm, something about this doesn't seem right. So here we have a bunch of companies failing miserably. The person who was paid to make sure exactly that was not the case is still being rewarded handsomely. Sure, they've lost money, but they've still gained much. I think Mark Cuban nailed it when he said,

There is one major problem on Wall Street, that until solved, will result in meltown after meltdown in future years. I can’t say if the meltdown monkey will hit every 2,3, 5 or 10 years. But I can say with certainty that it will happen again. Why ?

Because Risk and Reward have been decoupled for CEOs on Wall Street.

If you are the CEO of a major public company, once you qualify for your golden parachute there is absolutely no reason not to throw the Hail Mary pass, and do high risk deals every chance you get.

The excuse for such high levels of pay is that these are jobs high in risk, and so there needs to be a high reward so people can accept the risk. But if the risk is still worth millions of dollars, I think it's fair to say that the risk is gone. And thus, the incentive not to fail is greatly removed.

I was glad to see Newseek this week analyze the levels of pay of more of these CEOs and give a fantastic rundown. They asked what the CEOs heavily involved in the events of the past week went away with financially.

So what can we do? Is this a problem? I personally would not be opposed to legislation requiring publicly traded companies to cap CEO pay at something like 100 times the average worker at their company's salary. Thoughts?

The Art of Flopping

2008-09-15T21:56:00.002-05:00

Well worth passing on:

(ht: TrueHoop)

Urban Jesus

2008-09-14T22:38:00.006-05:00

This is pretty neat. My church is currently doing a series called Urban Jesus. We're talking about how,

The city changes you. In many ways the city becomes you and you become the city. The church at Corinth allowed the city to change them, even their view of God.

Paul writes the first few chapters of I Corinthians focused on the person of Christ and how Jesus should change even how we live in the city. Urban Jesus is a study on how city dwellers should be transformed by the Gospel of Jesus even more than their city.

I think the graphic for the series is pretty cool too.

Being a part of a church that is continuing the discussion begun by Tim Keller, Ray Bakke, and Bob Lupton, among many others, is pretty fun.

Happy Birthday Baby!

2008-09-13T23:14:00.000-05:00

One year old.

What's the best show on TV ever?

2008-09-11T22:17:00.002-05:00

Jason Kottke wants to know.

And if you know us, you know we're happy about the results so far.

The Suburban Dream

2008-09-10T21:10:00.004-05:00

So, after basically taking two months off, I'm back. Or at least I hope to be.
What better subject to kick things off with than a spiel on the collapsing suburban dream.

So a couple months ago, CNN ran an interesting article asking whether, "America's suburban dream [is] collapsing into a nightmare?" They noted,

This change can be witnessed in places like Atlanta, Georgia, Detroit, Michigan, and Dallas, Texas, said Christopher Leinberger, an urban planning professor at the University of Michigan and visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, where once rundown downtowns are being revitalized by well-educated, young professionals who have no desire to live in a detached single family home typical of a suburbia where life is often centered around long commutes and cars.

Instead, they are looking for what Leinberger calls "walkable urbanism" -- both small communities and big cities characterized by efficient mass transit systems and high density developments enabling residents to walk virtually everywhere for everything -- from home to work to restaurants to movie theaters.

The so-called New Urbanism movement emerged in the mid-90s and has been steadily gaining momentum, especially with rising energy costs, environmental concerns and health problems associated with what Leinberger calls "drivable suburbanism" -- a low-density built environment plan that emerged around the end of the World War II and has been the dominant design in the U.S. ever since.

Thirty-five percent of the nation's wealth, according to Leinberger, has been invested in constructing this drivable suburban landscape.

But now, Leinberger told CNN, it appears the pendulum is beginning to swing back in favor of the type of walkable community that existed long before the advent of the once fashionable suburbs in the 1940s. He says it is being driven by generations molded by television shows like "Seinfeld" and "Friends," where city life is shown as being cool again -- a thing to flock to, rather than flee.

"The image of the city was once something to be left behind,"

Continuing on that theme, the Freakonomics blog ran a quorum on the subject. They asked, "What is the Future of Suburbia?" Answers ran the gamut from 'apocalyptic utopianism' to 'brutal reality.

I then read a great article which talked about this trend featuring, of all places, Chicago. In The New Republic, in an article called Trading Places, Alan Ehrenhalt wrote about the demographic inversion of the American city. He notes,

In the past three decades, Chicago has undergone changes that are routinely described as gentrification, but are in fact more complicated and more profound than the process that term suggests. A better description would be "demographic inversion." Chicago is gradually coming to resemble a traditional European city--Vienna or Paris in the nineteenth century, or, for that matter, Paris today. The poor and the newcomers are living on the outskirts. The people who live near the center--some of them black or Hispanic but most of them white--are those who can afford to do so.

I'm not necessarily sure what to think of this trend. While part of me doesn't want to be part of a trend, I'm completely on board with the benefits of 'New Urbanism'. One of the things we love about the city is the walkability and the option of accessible public transit. Being part of a densely populated area seems to lend itself to a dynamic level of life in a neighborhood that is very appealing to us.

At the same time, there is no doubt that choices are being made. As noted, cost of living is higher. And certain amenities are being chosen over others. And I suppose it does come down to what you matter most. But I guess what most matters to me is that people make that choice not based on false reasons, like schools, but on what they actually are choosing between.
We must ask ourselves, do we want a big yard or a walkable community?

Problems

2008-07-17T12:10:00.001-05:00

So I've been a bit busy lately. You may have noticed my post count dropping. Sorry about that. Don't worry, it's not an indication that I will be leaving this blogging world, just a reflection of all that's going on for the fam right now. If you're curious, my wife has documented much of it over at WCW's.

Additionally, my home computer has crashed and I've been without it for over a month now. It's got all kinds of problems (hopefully not as bad as those caused by this guy, but still, yikes.) That's the first time this has been the case (no computer) since the beginning of my freshman year of college. Not sure if it's a good thing or not. Hopefully I'll be getting it fixed soon, but until then, I'm limited.

Hopefully you'll bear with me, and when I'm able to get back up and running and a bit more time becomes available, I'll be back with a vengeance. And until then, I'll still try to post when I'm able.

Life in Google Street View

2008-06-22T21:31:00.005-05:00

On a quiet afternoon at 6436 S. Oakley here in Chicago, two boys didn't notice the camera recording their every move...

Unsurprisingly, it appears that this particular picture has been pulled from online.

Play Budget Hero

2008-06-17T22:23:00.002-05:00

Have you ever thought you could do a better job than our current politicians in Washington? Well, here's your chance. In a highly engaging online game, this site has given you the ability to play federal budget czar.

It's up to you, balance our federal budget...

Play Budget Hero.

Poor People With Checks

2008-06-13T13:12:00.002-05:00

I apologize that I haven't been posting as frequently. Obviously there's been a lot going on. And then this past week my computer crashed. (still working on that)
That said, I will be continuing to try to throw fun insightful items up when I get the chance. So I hope you enjoy.

So I just got done watching this video featured on Freakonomics. To quote them,

What kind of people use check-cashing places? How do they work? Do such places contribute to inequality?
And most important — why are people paying for their own money?

Wonder no more.

Office Stress

2008-06-04T21:12:00.001-05:00

So one of my co-workers got a little stressed last month. Unfortunately for him, it was all captured on the security cameras...

Office Worker Goes Absolutely Insane - Watch more free videos

Peak Water

2008-05-29T22:49:00.004-05:00

So most of us have heard of the concept of Peak Oil. But have you heard concern about Peak Water?

Here's a good post that talks about this. It's definitely interesting. And for sure read the linked Wired article. As you've seen on here before, the discussion of water usage is something that I think will be a big part of our future.

The paucity or abundance of water countries and regions hold has the potential to be a leading cause of conflict as we move through this century.

Genocides

2008-05-13T23:11:00.002-05:00

I just finished watching The Devil Came On Horseback, a documentary about the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. Truly it is a horrendous situation; where more than 450,000 people have been killed. It is extremely sad that history keeps repeating itself.

Watching this, I feel it is of utmost importance that we be aware of what our history actually is. What was the greatest genocide of the last century?

If you said that perpetrated by Nazi Germany, you'd be wrong. While terrible, it only ranks third--just in the last century.

Civilians Killed by Governments in the Twentieth Century: Top Twenty Regimes
Location (Regime) Deaths Era
Soviet Union (Communists) 61,900,000 1917-1990
China (Communists) 35,200,000 1949-present
Germany (Nazi Third Reich) 20,900,000 1933-1945
China (Kuomintang) 10,400,000 1928-1949
Japan (Imperial-Fascist) 6,000,000 1936-1945
China (Communist Guerrillas) 3,500,000 1923-1948
Cambodia (Communists) 2,000,000 1975-1979
Turkey ("Young Turks") 1,900,000 1909-1917
Vietnam (Communists) 1,700,000 1945-present
North Korea (Communists) 1,700,000 1948-present
Poland (Communists) 1,600,000 1945-1948
Pakistan (Yahya Khan) 1,500,000 1971
Mexico (Porfiriato) 1,400,000 1900-1920
Yugoslavia (Communists) 1,100,000 1944-1990
Russia (Czarist) 1,100,000 1900-1917
Turkey (Mustafa Kemal "Ataturk") 900,000 1918-1923
United Kingdom (Constitutional) 800,000 1900-present
Portugal (Fascist) 700,000 1926-1975
Croatia (Fascists) 700,000 1941-1945
Indonesia (Suharto) 600,000 1965-present

And this is to say nothing of the 19th century. 8-10 million people died at the hands of King Leopold of the Netherlands in the Congo, 400,000 Circassians were killed by the Russians, ...and I could go on.

Sadly, we continually seem to be reminded that people are evil. As German philosopher Friedrich Hegel said, "The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history." Oh that instead we would heed the words of George Santayana who said, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

Homeless: Can you build a life from $25?

2008-05-11T17:49:00.001-05:00

In a test of the American Dream, Adam Shepard started life from scratch with the clothes on his back and twenty-five dollars...

Did he make a go of it, and if so what does that say about the state of homelessness in our country today? Find out.

Alive

2008-05-08T23:33:00.005-05:00

I found this tidbit of new research extremely interesting.

Understanding the concept of a "living thing" is a late developmental achievement. Early research by Jean Piaget, showed that kids attribute "life status" to things that move on their own (e.g. clouds or bikes) and even 10-year-olds have difficulty understanding the scope of a living thing.

Wow. That has some big ramifications to me. To be honest, though, it doesn't surprise me. First of all, if it takes humans this long, it is obvious that this is a concept animals would struggle with. And what follows to me is the interesting tie-in to the 'Age of Accountability' discussion. The question is, if you still don't truly understand what it means to be alive, do you understand what to be human really is? And then, do you understand that you have a soul?

Protestantism vs. Catholicism

2008-05-04T16:13:00.004-05:00

The past year has seen continued evolution within Roman Catholicism as the new Pope continues to put his own stamp of leadership on that branch of Christianity. As I was reading about it recently, though, I was reminded that it is worth observing that there are distinct differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. This becomes especially important when we read what Pope Benedict approved as a statement about Catholicism:

This Church [the Christian church founded by Jesus], constituted and organised in this world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him.

...According to Catholic doctrine, these Communities [Protestant churches] do not enjoy apostolic succession in the sacrament of Orders, and are, therefore, deprived of a constitutive element of the Church. These ecclesial Communities which, specifically because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood, have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery cannot, according to Catholic doctrine, be called "Churches" in the proper sense.

He is claiming that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church -- or, in words the Vatican would prefer to use, the only institutional form in which the Church of Christ subsists. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has an interesting perspective on this:

It all comes down to this -- the claim of the Roman Catholic Church to the primacy of the Bishop of Rome and the Pope as the universal monarch of the church is the defining issue. Roman Catholics and Evangelicals should together recognize the importance of that claim. We should together realize and admit that this is an issue worthy of division. The Roman Catholic Church is willing to go so far as to assert that any church that denies the papacy is no true church. Evangelicals should be equally candid in asserting that any church defined by the claims of the papacy is no true church. This is not a theological game for children, it is the honest recognition of the importance of the question.
The Reformers and their heirs put their lives on the line in order to stake this claim. In this era of confusion and theological laxity we often forget that this was one of the defining issues of the Reformation itself. Both the Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church staked their claim to be the true church -- and both revealed their most essential convictions in making their argument. As Martin Luther and John Calvin both made clear, the first mark of the true Church is the ministry of the Word -- the preaching of the Gospel. The Reformers indicted the Roman Catholic Church for failing to exhibit this mark, and thus failing to be a true Church. The Catholic church returned the favor, defining the church in terms of the papacy and magisterial authority. Those claims have not changed.

I also appreciate the spiritual concern reflected in this document. The artificial and deadly dangerous game of ecumenical confusion has obscured issues of grave concern for our souls. I truly believe that Pope Benedict and the Congregation for the Defense of the Faith are concerned for our evangelical souls and our evangelical congregations. Pope Benedict is not playing a game. He is not asserting a claim to primacy on the playground. He, along with the Magisterium of his church, believes that Protestant churches are gravely defective and that our souls are in danger. His sacramental theology plays a large role in this concern, for he believes and teaches that a church without submission to the papacy has no guaranteed efficacy for its sacraments. (This point, by the way, explains why the Protestant churches that claim a sacramental theology are more concerned about this Vatican statement -- it denies the basic validity of their sacraments.)

I actually appreciate the Pope's concern. If he is right, we are endangering our souls and the souls of our church members. Of course, I am convinced that he is not right -- not right on the papacy, not right on the sacraments, not right on the priesthood, not right on the Gospel, not right on the church.

The Roman Catholic Church believes we are in spiritual danger for obstinately and disobediently excluding ourselves from submission to its universal claims and its papacy. Evangelicals should be concerned that Catholics are in spiritual danger for their submission to these very claims. We both understand what is at stake.

The Rev. Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, responded to the press by saying that the Vatican's "exclusive claims" are "troubling." He also said, "what may have been meant to clarify has caused pain."

I will let Bishop Hanson explain his pain. I do not see this new Vatican statement as an innovation or an insult. I see it as a clarification and a helpful demarcation of the issues at stake.

I appreciate the Roman Catholic Church's candor on this issue, and I believe that Evangelical Christians, with equal respect and clarity, should respond in kind. This is a time to be respectfully candid -- not a time to be offended.

So what are the differences between Protestantism and Catholicism? Justin Taylor quoted a nice rundown from Scott Manetsch, who is associate professor of church history at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, on his blog:

In summary, this reviewer believes it impossible to reconcile the classic Protestant solas with the teaching of the Catholic Catechism.

For Roman Catholics, Scripture and Tradition are two distinct but equal modes of revealed authority which the magisterium of the Roman Church has sole responsibility to transmit and interpret. For the early Protestant reformers, the holy Scripture provides final normative authority for Christian doctrine and practice, standing as judge above all institutions and ecclesial traditions.

For Roman Catholics, sinners are justified because of inherent righteousness. For the mainstream Protestant reformers, sinners are accepted on the basis of the righteousness of another—namely, the alien righteousness of Christ imputed to them.

For Roman Catholics, sinners are both justified by unmerited grace at baptism and (subsequently) justified by those infused graces merited by cooperating with divine grace. For the magisterial reformers, sinners are justified before God by grace alone.

For Roman Catholics, sinners are justified by faith (in baptism), but not by faith alone. For the sixteenth-century Protestant reformers, sinners are justified by faith alone.

For Roman Catholics, justification is a process of renewal that affords no solid basis for Christian assurance in this life. For reformers such as Luther and Calvin, justification is God’s decisive verdict of forgiveness and righteousness that assures Christian believers of the acceptance and love of their heavenly Father.

And so there you go. As Mohler says, "This is a theological question." As with all theology, there is absolute truth at stake on this issue. Finding it becomes our task.

Protecting Your Children

2008-04-24T23:50:00.003-05:00

So which is more protective? Not letting your child ride the subway by themselves or dropping them off at a subway station and telling them to find their way home?

Have you heard of the case of Lenore Skenazy? Ed Gilbreath points the way:

Skenazy equipped her 9-year-old son with a map, a subway card, and 20 bucks, then dropped him off at a New York department store to find his way home by himself. Skenazy wrote about this in The New York Sun and promptly heard it from outraged folks accusing her of endangering her son. There was some supportive feedback as well. Check out the article and a Today show segment about the episode. Skenazy, who believes today’s parents have allowed the culture to make them more paranoid than in earlier eras, has launched a website called Free Range Kids, where she calls parents to stop being so overprotective of their children.

So, whaddya think? Is she right?

Loving Your Mugger

2008-04-14T20:56:00.002-05:00

Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner.

But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn.

He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.

"He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'" Diaz says.

As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm."

And so the story begins...

The end of The Wire

2008-04-03T22:36:00.003-05:00

A couple weeks ago my wife and I said goodbye to our friends from inner city Baltimore. Over the past five seasons, we felt like we had really gotten to know the characters of The Wire. It has been called the best television show ever by some.

For those fellow fans, Jason Kottke has a fantastic rundown of the reaction to the end. Please note for those who haven't seen it yet, the link contains MAJOR SPOILERS, so don't click it if you haven't seen the show. Instead, go out and rent it, starting with Season 1. Our favorite season was 4. Yours?

Being an Engineer

2008-04-01T22:31:00.001-05:00

A few years ago for my birthday I received the below birthday card from a friend of mine.

Classic. Wired has been kind enough to elaborate on the difficulties of gaining an engineering degree. But, as the card says....

The result is priceless. Right?

The Subprime Mortgage Debacle

2008-03-31T21:24:00.002-05:00

A buddy of mine posted this link to his blog, but I thought it was worth passing on to this audience. Interesting.

So what role should the government play in fixing/regulating this industry?

Water Purifying

2008-03-29T21:45:00.003-05:00

As an engineer, I am cognisant of the fact that many serious maladies facing the world today have the potential for fixes with improvements to technology and base infrastructure, especially in the developing world.

A fantastic new development in this spirit was recently previewed on, of all places, the Colbert Report. Dean Kamen--yes, the inventor of the Segway--showed Stephen his new water purifier. It truly is an amazing device. It would seem to me that it has great potential to change the water game in Third World countries.

Back From the Heart of Texas

2008-03-26T22:32:00.012-05:00

We just returned from a fun quick trip to Texas. We attended a wedding on Lake LBJ outside Austin, and then we took the chance to visit both Austin and San Antonio, along with touring some of the Hill Country.

So after spending some time in that region of Texas, I can definitely see the appeal. From the urban young feel of Austin and the University of Texas,

to the beauty of Lake LBJ and the Hill Country,

to the Alamo and the Riverwalk,

there's a lot to see there. So add it to your list if you haven't been.

Learning to Lie

2008-03-17T22:20:00.004-05:00

New York Magazine recently ran a fascinating article on how we learn to lie. They observe how it is that kids grow up to learn to lie.

And their conclusion is simple. Kids learn it from their parents. Sobering.

Joe Carter summarizes,

Bronson's article contains a number of revealing tidbits, including:
1. Lying is related to intelligence. The smarter the kid, the better they are at lying.
2. On average, a 4-year-old will lie once every two hours, while a 6-year-old will lie about once every hour and a half.
3. Scholars have found that kids who live in threat of consistent punishment don’t lie less. Instead, they become better liars, at an earlier age—learning to get caught less often.
4. Children lie because they see their parents lie, and learn to imitate them. Adults inadvertently teach children that honesty only creates conflict, and dishonesty is an easy way to avoid conflict.
5. Permissive parents don’t actually learn more about their children’s lives.
6. Most rules-heavy parents don’t actually enforce them since its too much work.
7. Parents view arguing with their teenager as destructive to their relationship, while teens see it as strengthening their bond.

Why Eating a Big Mac is Cheaper than Eating a Salad

2008-03-09T22:43:00.002-05:00

No further explanation necessary.

Toilet to Tap

2008-03-06T23:09:00.004-06:00

There is little doubt that shortages of water are going to be a problem of the future. Recently, a new water purification plant opened in southwest California, which will allow reuse of wastewater after cleaning it. Of course, that is not sitting well with some residents. The mayor of San Diego attempted to stop the project. Some people are not okay with drinking what was formerly toilet water. Stephanie Pakalns explains,

That's gross!

I think this is completely okay, though. The process goes like this:

...the Orange County government [takes] sewer water and, instead of dumping it into the ocean after treatment, clean[s] it a second time using technology that renders the water almost distilled, exceeding all state and federal drinking standards, officials said.

The water then goes from the new $480 million water plant in nearby Fountain Valley to the drinking supply that lies beneath Anaheim—percolating many months through the earth into an aquifer serving 2.3 million people in 20 cities.

The process departs from the routine: Treated sewage typically is returned to the environment at large, such as in rivers and lakes, and after it dilutes in the vast bodies, the water is reharvested. The Orange County process skips the return-to-the-great-outdoors step.

Hmm, sounds clean to me. And really, steps like this are going to be needed to meet the West's and the world's growing water shortages. The New York Times recently had an informational rundown of the dire situation the American West is facing in regard to water. It notes,

...a lesser Colorado River would almost certainly lead to a considerable amount of economic havoc, as the future water supplies for the West’s industries, agriculture and growing municipalities are threatened. As one prominent Western water official described the possible future to me, if some of the Southwest’s largest reservoirs empty out, the region would experience an apocalypse, “an Armageddon.”

Take the time to read the NYT article as it will certainly make you think twice about the water you use. But most of all, it made me realize how valuable water is. So, I've decided to invest some money in 'water resources' stocks. Stocks from the sort of company who built this new sewage water recycling plant. Will people be willing to drink this water? Would you?

Dr. Quantum

2008-03-02T08:40:00.001-06:00

I just watched the documentary What the Bleep Do We Know!? in order to get some thinking on quantum physics in. The original documentary I watched is, in my opinion, forgettable. While discussing interesting ideas on particle mechanics and consciousness, the scientists sound a bit too sure of themselves, while leaving obviously apparent their empty spirituality. They're searching to fill a hole they feel, but their explanations are labored.

That said, in the follow up Down the Rabbit Hole edition, there are some pretty cool animations that do a good job of explaining some complex physics ideas. And I love thinking at the fringes of our understanding of our world. So tune in, and enjoy. Here's Dr. Quantum to tell you about the famous double-slit experiment that shows us the 'observer effect':

I think part of the reason that this documentary was so successful is that people are searching for the answers to the ultimate questions of 'Who we are?' and 'Where did we come from?'. And if nothing else, the show gets you thinking about questions that may answer questions we have about our world. But, and here I guess I'll just repeat myself, I think science will ultimately point to God. The question to me is whether people will admit that.

Pythons could squeeze lower third of USA

2008-02-29T22:53:00.002-06:00

No burying the lede here. USA Today warns us,

As climate change warms the nation, giant Burmese pythons could colonize one-third of the USA, from San Francisco across the Southwest, Texas and the South and up north along the Virginia coast, according to U.S. Geological Survey maps released Wednesday.
The pythons can be 20 feet long and 250 pounds. They are highly adaptable to new environments.

Seriously, you might want to reconsider venturing outside if you live in the South. Don't say the USA Today didn't warn you...

The Last Lecture

2008-02-27T23:17:00.002-06:00

What would you say in your last lecture?

Rush, Little Baby

2008-02-21T22:57:00.006-06:00

This morning on NPR, I was listening to a story on Morning Edition on about self-regulation in kids. It was pretty fascinating. So continuing on the raising kids theme...

The story notes,

We know that children's capacity for self-regulation has diminished. A recent study replicated a study of self-regulation first done in the late 1940s, in which psychological researchers asked kids ages 3, 5 and 7 to do a number of exercises. One of those exercises included standing perfectly still without moving. The 3-year-olds couldn't stand still at all, the 5-year-olds could do it for about three minutes, and the 7-year-olds could stand pretty much as long as the researchers asked. In 2001, researchers repeated this experiment. But, psychologist Elena Bodrova at the National Institute for Early Education Research says, the results were very different.

"Today's 5-year-olds were acting at the level of 3-year-olds 60 years ago, and today's 7-year-olds were barely approaching the level of a 5-year-old 60 years ago," Bodrova explains. "So the results were very sad."

Sad because self-regulation is incredibly important. Poor executive function is associated with high dropout rates, drug use and crime. In fact, good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child's IQ. Children who are able to manage their feelings and pay attention are better able to learn. As executive function researcher Laura Berk explains, "Self-regulation predicts effective development in virtually every domain."

Basically, these researchers have shown that a main reason for this diminished ability to self-regulate is that independent playtime has been lost for today's children. They note that imaginative play helps develop a child's ability to function independently in the world today. The New York Times, in an extensive article on play, noted,

Yet for humans, pretend play is one of the most crucial forms of play, occupying at its peak at about age 4 some 20 percent of a child’s day. It includes some of the most wondrous moments of childhood: dramatic play, wordplay, ritual play, symbolic play, games, jokes and imaginary friends. And it is the kind of play that positively screams out for hyperbole when outsiders try to describe it.

At the same time as the recognition of the possible value of play grows, we live in an era where parents are pushing to give their child every advantage they can. In fact, it can probably be stated without hesitation that today's American parents care more about their childrens' success than ever before. Many claim that via the right developmental aids you can help give your child an advantage. And often, this 'pushing' comes at the cost of time spent playing. In a fantastic article, from which I took the title to this post, the Boston Globe reported on the overwhelming trend to provide your child with infant academic assistance. They state,

This desire on the part of many middle-class and affluent parents to help their kids get ahead is understandable. We've all heard the predictions about how, in the downsized and outsourced economy of tomorrow, our children may be the first generation of Americans to be worse off than their parents. Into this vat of anxiety, two forces have been poured that are turning up the heat even more. First, advances in brain research have offered tantalizing clues about the magic at work in our infants' gray matter. Second, market forces have exploited these tantalizing clues and used them to sell billions of dollars' worth of educational toys and programs, often by making claims wildly beyond the conclusions drawn by the scientists who did the actual research.

They go on to talk about the (sometimes subconscious) competition between moms of babies and preschoolers as they compare the advancements of their children. They note, however, that sometimes what seems worth bragging about may not be such:

Spend enough time in suburban preschools these days, and you're bound to hear one parent or another uttering a boast masquerading as a complaint about how they just can't keep the books coming fast enough for their precocious 3- or 4-year-old reader. Odds are, there's probably no reason to boast. Researchers who've been marinating in reading studies for years say a tiny percentage of children - maybe 3 percent, maybe a little more or less - can be classified as truly early readers. These 3- or 4-year-olds understand phonics and context, and they will likely keep up their accelerated reading pace throughout their school years. Bravo to those kids. Reading is the gateway to so much of life's important learning, so a few years more of it can't hurt them.

But most of the other early readers bringing smiles to their parents' faces aren't really reading at all. They're demonstrating merely that they've memorized lots of words by sight. Instead of understanding the discrete sounds and segments that make up the word CAT, and understanding that each letter in the word has both its own name and its own sound or group of sounds, these children - like our early ancestors - see it as just a whole symbol for the furry feline. Change the first letter to E, and they might still think feline, until they memorize the new word. Studies have demonstrated that the early reading advances these kids show typically wash out a few years down the line.

They continue,

A classic study in the 1930s by noted researcher and Illinois educator Carleton Washburne compared the trajectories of children who had begun reading at several ages, up to 7. Washburne concluded that, in general, a child could best learn to read beginning around the age of 6. By middle school, he found no appreciable difference in reading levels between the kids who had started young versus the kids who had started later, except the earlier readers appeared to be less motivated and less excited about reading. More recent research also raises doubt about the push for early readers. A cross-cultural study of European children published in 2003 in the British Journal of Psychology found those taught to read at age 5 had more reading problems than those who were taught at age 7.

Interestingly enough, I can possibly attest to this. As a kindergartener, I went to an elementary school that needless to say was not academically advanced. It actually ended up being one of the reasons my parents decided to move to another town. So I didn't learn to read my kindergarten year. That said, my parents were content to let me advance at my own rate. They didn't push me to read at home and entering the first grade at a new school, I didn't know how. I just wasn't that interested in learning yet. That changed the first day of school when I realized that all my classmates at the new school knew how to read. Literally, according to my parents, I learned to read in a few weeks. I was not going to let myself be behind these other kids, and that was all the motivation I needed. Those who know me can probably attest to the motivation that competition can be for me. I didn't turn back and quickly came to absolutely love reading. A love of reading that endures to this day. I devoured books throughout my youth, and continue to, as much as time now allows.

Did I love reading more because I wasn't pushed to learn and possibly learned when my brain was more optimally ready? I don't know, but I know I wouldn't change it.

They conclude the article, which appropriately enough was subtitled "How the push for infant academics may actually be a waste of time - or worse," by noting,

This doesn't mean that early exposure to learning isn't important for kids. It is vitally important. It should just be the right kind of learning, and the right kind of exposure. Study after study shows the best thing parents can do for their children is give them a nurturing, rich, vibrant environment, reading to them often and exposing them to lots of language in organic ways...

[But]...in fact, ...this heightened push for early learning might even slow down normal brain development through a phenomenon known as neurological "crowding," where information jams up the synapses in the brain that might best be reserved for more creative tasks in later years. Remember that in his early years, Einstein was considered just an average student.

All of this brings us back to that surprising brain study giving late bloomers cause for celebration. Researchers from the National Institutes of Mental Health performed periodic MRI brain scans on children and teens ranging in age from 5 to 19, tracking the relationship between the thickness of the brain's outer mantle, or cortex, with the subject's IQ. They found that the people whose IQ scores put them in the "superior intelligence" category had cortexes that matured much later than those of average intelligence. The cortexes of the smartest kids peaked by around age 11 or 12, whereas the average kids' peaked by around age 8. Jay Giedd, one of the lead researchers, says he and his colleagues were initially taken aback by the findings, but with more reflection they realized they made all kinds of sense. "By having this peak period of plasticity later," he says, "the brain is adapting to the 12-year-old world, which is more complicated, more similar to the adult world, than the 8-year-old world."

The idea is, patience pays off.

So, in an era where children are pushed more than ever to develop academically and athletically, it just may be that these efforts are backfiring. And ironically, these pushes may be stealing time from what a child may truly need. NPR summarizes,

It seems that in the rush to give children every advantage — to protect them, to stimulate them, to enrich them — our culture has unwittingly compromised one of the activities that helped children most. All that wasted time was not such a waste after all.

Adultolescents

2008-02-17T19:22:00.004-06:00

Considering I have my own child now, I've begun to resonate more with articles on parenting and the issues parents face raising their children as I watch the news.

Thus, it hit me when I recently read two articles on the growing problem of children from affluent Christian settings not being ready psychologically or emotionally for adulthood. First, I noticed where John Piper wrote about "'adultolescence'—that is, the postponement of adulthood into the thirties." He references another work that defines further what this phenomenon entails. Then, he goes on to discuss how the Church should respond:

How might the church respond to this phenomenon in our culture? Here are my suggestions.

1. The church will encourage maturity, not the opposite. “Do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature” (1 Corinthians 14:20)....

He adds a total of 15 suggestions. Good stuff, and especially important to keep in mind if we're working with youth or college students.

It all reminded me of this post by Anthony Bradley I read entitled The Suburban Church: Ushering Kids Into Counseling In Their 20s and 30s. Anthony notes,

Raising church kids in the suburbs may be setting them up for psychological distress in their 20s and 30s. A few weeks ago at a youth group from a very large church in a middle class suburb of St. Louis, I asked the following question: 'What are your parents doing to you right now that will probably guarantee that you will be in counseling when you’re in your 20s and 30s?'
I knew about the nearly irreversible lacerations of divorce or the nuclear fallout when negative comments about appearance are delivered to daughters. I was shocked by the other laments. Here is just a small sample from that night...

He concludes,

Once this dam broke the youth pastor had to cut it off so he could give his talk about how the Gospel addresses all of their issues related to past pain. Many hands were still up in the air. It was sad. Dr. Madeline Levin, in The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids, summarizes new national data saying, 'America’s newly identified at-risk group is preteens and teens from affluent, well-educated families. In spite of their economic and social advantages, they experience among the highest rates of depression, substance abuse, anxiety disorders, somatic complaints, and unhappiness of any group of children in this country.' It seems that this is no different in churches of affluence. What happened?

And I think we can all wonder that question. The question for us as parents now, though, is how do we prevent this from being the case for us too?

Sending out an S.O.S.

2008-02-13T22:36:00.003-06:00

I've always been fascinated by the concept of people sending a message they don't know will be received. Although somewhat morbid, I wonder what note I would write if I were like a miner trapped in a mine after a collapse. Or how about the notes that people write to be placed in a time capsule? Today, I read a good story describing how NBA star Anthony Carter wrote to his future self a note in elementary school about how he would make the NBA. Pretty cool that he saw it fulfilled.

Similarly, sending out a message in a bottle is the ultimate in notewriting hopefulness. I was reading on the Kircher Society's blog and they shared a pretty crazy story in this regard:

The strangest [bottle voyage] case was perhaps that of Chunosuke Matsuyama, a Japanese seaman who was wrecked with 44 shipmates in 1784. Shortly before he and his companions died of starvation on a Pacific coral reef, Matsuyama carved a brief account of their tragedy on a piece of wood, sealed it in a bottle, and then threw it into the sea. It was washed up 150 years later in 1935 at the very seaside village where Matsuyama had been born.

Whoah, what a coincidence! So, if you could write a note to your great grandchild, what would you say?

Evolution of Dance

2008-02-10T08:54:00.000-06:00

Probably many of you have seen this before, but since I haven't posted it before, in case you haven't -- enjoy.

Pacifism on the Streets

2008-02-03T23:44:00.000-06:00

So it's been about two years since I was held up. Thinking back on it, it's a life experience that's taught me a lot.

Today, I was reminded of the credo to 'turn the other cheek' while watching an episode of The Wire. You see, one of the kids was getting sick of being beaten up, and decided to take some boxing lessons. His instructor, recognizing that his goal was revenge, reminded him gently that even by gaining the ability to defend himself, he was not taking the target off his back. Trouble would just keep coming.

This marvelous story by Shane Claiborne hit home to me after my own experience. How hard it is to walk the violent streets, content to be used by the depraved if they so choose. Shane tells of walking with 11-year-old Cassim in the streets of Philadelphia and facing down a group of young toughs. After they've somehow left them be after a minor beatdown, Cassim asks,

Shane, why am I taking boxing lessons?

Shane responds by noting that using those skills would only have escalated the situation. He goes on,

I asked Cassim if he thought Jesus was happy with how we acted. He thought about it, and then nodded with a smile. I told him that, honestly, I wasn't sure exactly what Jesus would have done if he were in our place … but there are two things I know Jesus would not have done. He would not have fought. And he would not have run. I told him Jesus may have thought of something else, or he may have done something weird to throw them off, as he often seems to do – like drawing in the dirt with his finger (or writing on the road with sidewalk chalk, "you are better than this"), or maybe pulling a coin out of a fish's mouth (or pulling a piece of candy out of a pigeon's mouth). But I think Jesus was happy with how we acted, and that we were good representatives – good witnesses – of Christ to them. Cassim agreed, and then we prayed for them together. And finally, as he was leaving, Cassim reminded me that each of those boys has to go to bed thinking about what they did that day, and so did we.

I'm not sure about those other boys, but Cassim and I both slept well that night...

I wonder, would I have had the toughness not to fight back? I remember well dealing with the anger after losing my wallet. My gut wasn't to turn the other cheek but seek revenge.

Today I was reminded of that when I wanted the youngster in The Wire to fight back and win. Take out the evildoers by force--I wanted revenge for him. It's got me thinking...
I'm not there yet.

How We Get the Odds Wrong

2008-01-29T21:42:00.000-06:00

I thought this article in Psychology Today was pretty interesting. Basically, it points out that we as humans are terrible at analyzing risk. It notes,

Our brains are terrible at assessing modern risks. Here's how to think straight about dangers in your midst...

These days, it seems like everything is risky, and worry itself is bad for your health. The more we learn, the less we seem to know—and if anything makes us anxious, it's uncertainty. At the same time, we're living longer, healthier lives. So why does it feel like even the lettuce [with pesticides on it!] is out to get us?

The human brain is exquisitely adapted to respond to risk—uncertainty about the outcome of actions. Faced with a precipice or a predator, the brain is biased to make certain decisions.

The first item it points out hits home for me:

I. We Fear Snakes, Not Cars
Risk and emotion are inseparable.

Fear feels like anything but a cool and detached computation of the odds. But that's precisely what it is, a lightning-fast risk assessment performed by your reptilian brain, which is ever on the lookout for danger. The amygdala flags perceptions, sends out an alarm message, and—before you have a chance to think—your system gets flooded with adrenaline...Emotions are decision-making shortcuts.

As a result of these...emotional algorithms, ancient threats like spiders and snakes cause fear out of proportion to the real danger they pose, while experiences that should frighten us—like fast driving—don't. Dangers like speedy motorized vehicles are newcomers on the landscape of life. The instinctive response to being approached rapidly is to freeze. In the [past], this reduced a predator's ability to see you—but that doesn't help when what's speeding toward you is a car.

And sure enough, despite the fact that I work on roads for my occupation and know the frequency of accidents, I am I admit a bit scared of snakes. Never have I felt those same emotions getting into a car...

So here's to recognizing what's truly dangerous and not living in fear...