I Am An American

Amazing to think that we are more than a decade removed from the events of that fateful day, 11 years ago.

Today in one of my classes we spent some time talking about someone who died last June who would have been one of our classmates. His name is Scottie Pace, and you can read an article about him here. He received some attention in the news last year when he decided to shoot off some flares to defray some protestors who were upset about Koran's being burnt on a military base in Afghanistan. He was actually ordered to open fire if the protestors advanced, but decided to take a more muted approach to the situation. We read some correspondence of his detailing some of his thoughts during the situation.

He died in a helicopter crash this past June when he was attacked.

It's amazing to think about what some people do to serve this country, and the sacrifices that they end up making.

And those sacrifices were in a crazy way punctuated 11 years ago, but are still being made to this day.

Anyway, thanks to those who serve who make our lives so very comfortable, maybe more than we sometimes deserve.

Camera Work

So I never saw Hugo, but I guess this is a shot of the opening scene. What's really cool about this video is that it's shot with a GoPro on top of the steadicam as it goes through these different scenes, and you really get a good feel for just how much work it is to have everything so perfectly choreographed and synced so that everything looks so smooth and perfect. I especially liked the part where it circles around the girl and they actually pull the dresser out and have a moveable wall in place so that it can circle around her as she sits in the corner. Very cool stuff. It's seeing stuff like this and then reading about The Artist and all the details involved that really helps me to appreciate how artistic and deliberate directors must be in their films. Just thought this was kind of cool.

This and That

A lot of times I end up saving articles in my inbox, or my blog reader, or in other places, for the purposes of posting them on here later, or sending them to someone, or what have you. I probably only end up posting/sending/whatever-ing the stuff I save like a quarter of the time, and then eventually I delete it wherever it's stored because it's so long after the fact. Today, I'm just going to link/excerpt everything that came in the last few days that is currently in my online digital storage. So here goes...

How to buy a new car:



Here are the basics if you don't want to watch the video:

So let me lay out how to buy a car. It’s very easy. Decide exactly what car you want to buy, make, color if it matters to you, options and so forth. Then do not go to a dealership. Let your fingers do the walking. Telephone all of the dealers who sell the vehicle you’re interested in who are, say, within a 50 mile radius, a 25 mile radius, 75, however far you’re willing to go.

To each of them make the same statement: “Hi, my name is so and so. I plan to buy such and such a car today at 5pm. I’m going to buy it from the dealer who gives me the best price. What is your best price?” 

The economists over at Cafe Hayek had this to say about central planning:

My eye recently caught on t.v., in passing, an old film clip of someone trying to fly like a bird.  This would-be aviator had wing-like things strapped to his arms.  Of course, no amount of flapping would get this human being to take flight like the birds he sought to imitate.  One important reason, of course, is that we humans – as smart and clever as we are – can observe only a tiny fraction of the details of what enables birds to fly.  We can observe a handful of large details (“bird flaps limbs that extend kinda, sorta from bird’s shoulder”; “bird’s flapping limbs are made of lightweight things that we call ‘feathers’,” and so on).  But the amount of detail that we don’t – can’t – observe with the naked eye (even with a naked eye as careful as that of Leonardo) is overwhelming.  The bird’s musculature; cardiovascular system; weight and position and minuscule maneuverings of its tail – these and countless other relevant details aren’t observed.

The human being observes a bird in flight and then analogizes his – the human’s – limbs and muscle movements to what he supposes, from his observations, are those of the bird.  But the human is too easily misled into thinking that he can easily-enough mimic the bird’s body and movements and, thereby, achieve flight.

Obviously, no human can do so.  Such attempts as there have been by man to strap on wings, flap, and fly invariably failed – sometimes catastrophically for the pretend Icaruses.

….

Attempts to centrally plan economies are very much like attempts to fly by dressing like and flapping like a bird: utterly futile because the most that can be observed of any successful economy are a handful of large details (“assembly lines,” “retail outlets”…..).  The vast majority (99.99999999999…9 percent) of the details that must work reasonably well aren’t observed by the would-be central planner.  What Hayek called “knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place” – knowledge of details spread today across the globe and across billions of different human minds – is not incidental to the successful operation of a modern economy.  Utilizing that knowledge – vast, deep, changing, incredibly fine-grained detailed knowledge – is the very key to a successful market economy.

Central planning is as futile as trying to strap on wings and fly like a bird – and potentially as calamitous.

Of course, few people today advocate full-scale central planning of economies.  But smaller-scale interventions suffer the same problems as do attempts at central planning: inevitably inadequate knowledge of how to intervene.  Asserting, for example, that the key to economic recovery is to “increase aggregate demand” is a fiction borne from observing a true, but only large and inadequate, fact about successful economies: most producers, at any given time, are able to sell most of what they plan to sell.  But to leap from this observation to the conclusion that “therefore, government can stimulate economic recovery by increasing aggregate demand” is akin to a human being costumed-up as a bird and leaping off of a mountaintop, flapping away, hoping, hoping, hoping to fly.

And then I thought this post was pretty interesting. It's called the Curley Effect, which is when a politician increases his political power by driving away opponents through some kind of radical or distortionary policies. One example is Detroit. Guess the other example...right...California....sigh...

In their paper, Glaeser and Shleifer write:

We call this strategy--increasing the relative size of one's political base through distortionary, wealth-reducing policies--the Curley effect. But it is hardly unique to Curley. Other American mayors, but also politicians around the world, pursued policies that encouraged emigration of their political enemies, raising poverty but gaining political advantage. In his 24 years as mayor, Detroit's Coleman Young drove white residents and businesses out of the city. "Under Young, Detroit has become not merely an American city that happens to have a black majority, but a black metropolis, the first major Third World city in the United States. The trappings are all there--showcase projects, black-fisted symbols, an external enemy, and the cult of personality" (Chafets 1990, p. 177). Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe abused the white farmers after his country's independence, openly encouraging their emigration even at a huge cost to the economy.

I think something similar is happening in California. California has become a heavily Democratic state. The majority Democrats in the legislature and the Democratic governor are pursuing highly wasteful projects: a "high-speed" rail that probably won't be high-speed but will surely be high-cost, and higher marginal income tax rates (already among the highest in the United States) on the highest-income people, to name two. They don't seem to be restrained by the worry that many of the most-productive people will leave and are leaving the state. You can attribute this simply to ideology, and I'm sure that's an element. But I also think one of the Democrats' goals is to reduce the population of potential anti-Democrat voters so that their majority is assured.

Will that hurt many of the people who vote for them? Sure. But we need to distinguish between the fortunes of those who vote Democrat and the fortunes of the Democratic politicians. The California state government pays legislators pretty well in pay and perks when you consider the opportunity costs of many of them. And the state government is larded with high-paying sinecures for those few who ever lose an election or get redistricted out.

Interesting...

Two links I thought I'd throw out to you:

• This one is from Business Insider talking about how sales from the Iphone alone outdid all of Microsoft last year. Another blogger points out that it was not too long ago that some anti-trust lawsuits had been filed against Microsoft saying that the company was too big and that it had a monopoly over the market. For all you Iphone and Mac lovers out there, I hope that people don't start crying foul against Apple and trying to limit their business because other companies can't compete. From the article:
  

  It was not long ago that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was fending off those observing that Apple's market capitalization was closing in on Microsoft's by saying that, regardless of market cap, Microsoft's business was much bigger and more profitable.
  
  Not anymore.
  
  Now, Apple's business (in Q4) is more than twice the size of Microsoft's--$46 billion to $21 billion--and more than twice as profitable: $17 billion to $8 billion.
  
  And, needless to say, Apple's market cap now dwarfs Microsoft's. (Although, interestingly, Apple's market cap is not yet 2X Microsoft's, despite the difference in revenue, profitability, and growth rates. The market still appears to be concerned that Apple's "closed system" is vulnerable to the same sort of disruption by Android and other more open systems that Apple's Mac business was back in the 1990s).
  
  What's just as remarkable here is that Apple invented the iPhone business out of thin air in 2007. This is not an old product category. It's a completely new one. Which means that Microsoft or anyone else could have invented it.
  
  (The same can be said for the more recently introduced iPad, which is now cleaning Microsoft's clock in that category, too.)
  
  For the first decade of Steve Ballmer's reign at Microsoft, some folks cut him a break for the company's stagnant stock price by observing that the market had changed. But the market changed for Apple, too, and Apple innovated two huge new product lines, one of which is now bigger and more profitable than Microsoft's entire business. So Steve can't be cut a break for that anymore.

• And this post from a blog called Study Hacks. The guy is now a professor at some prestigious university, but what I really like about his stuff is that he's always talking about how the career worth pursuing is one found through the development of well defined skill sets. He talks about how Steve Martin is a good example of this: 

Martin’s Diligence

One of the things that has always impressed me about Steve Martin is his diligence. In his memoir, Born Standing Up, he emphasizes this theme — defining diligence not just in terms of persistence, but also in the ability to ignore unrelated pursuits.

Martin was, of course, being facetious when he pepped himself up with the idea that it would only take 40 years to get good at the banjo (he was playing at a high-level in his act within 5 – 10 years of starting his training), but this statement reflects a deeper truth: getting good at something is not to be taken lightly; it’s a pursuit measured in years, not weeks.

This diligence defined Martin’s path.

He spent decades focused intensely on his act, which meant two things: banjo and jokes.

After reaching the peak of the live comedy world in the 1970s he turned his attention for years to making movies.

Then he spent years working on fiction writing.

More recently he’s returned back to his banjo.

If you collapse Martin’s skills into a flat list, he sounds like a Renaissance man, but if you take a snapshot of any particular point of his life, you’ll encounter relentless, longterm focus on a very small number of things.

Diligence Versus the World

I’m reintroducing this idea of diligence because I keep encountering it in the stories of people with remarkable lives and yet almost never see it mentioned in the online community where Study Hacks lives.

And this is a problem.

We’ve created this fantasy world where everyone is just 30 days of courage boosting exercises and life hacks away from living an amazing life.

But when you study people like Martin, who really do live remarkable lives, you almost always encounter stretches of years and years dedicated to honing craft.


Anyway, just thought those were interesting. 

It's Groundhog Day!

At first I was just gonna post this clip sequence set to I Got You Babe just because I love Groundhog's Day (the movie), and then I came across this article and it's kind of amazing how seriously some people take the movie.

I've always really liked, and it's funny how many little things I find myself saying that come from this one.

Paaaaaaaaastry?

Anyway, here is an article that talks about it at length, and an excerpt:

Personally, I always saw Nietzsche’s doctrine of the eternal return of the same in this story. That was Nietzsche’s idea — metaphorical or literal — to imagine life as an endless repetition of the same events over and over. How would this shape your actions? What would you choose to live out for all eternity? Others see Camus, who writes about how we should live once we realize the absurdity of life. But existentialism doesn’t explain the film’s broader appeal. It is the religious resonance — if not necessarily explicit religious themes — that draws many to it. There’s much to the view of Punxsutawney as purgatory: Connors goes to his own version of hell, but since he’s not evil it turns out to be purgatory, from which he is released by shedding his selfishness and committing to acts of love. Meanwhile, Hindus and Buddhists see versions of reincarnation here, and Jews find great significance in the fact that Connors is saved only after he performs mitzvahs (good deeds) and is returned to earth, not heaven, to perform more.

The burning question: Was all this intentional? Yes and no. Ultimately, the story is one of redemption, so it should surprise no one that it speaks to those in search of the same. But there is also a secular, even conservative, point to be made here. Connors’s metamorphosis contradicts almost everything postmodernity teaches. He doesn’t find paradise or liberation by becoming more “authentic,” by acting on his whims and urges and listening to his inner voices. That behavior is soul-killing. He does exactly the opposite: He learns to appreciate the crowd, the community, even the bourgeois hicks and their values. He determines to make himself better by reading poetry and the classics and by learning to sculpt ice and make music, and most of all by shedding his ironic detachment from the world.

We're watching it tonight. That'll be good.

On a related note, I finished the 7th and final book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, which is proclaimed to be the magnum opus of all his work. I guess by now I'm a pretty big connoisseur of his work - I think I've read about 15 of his books - and I really kind of love him.

In one of his short stories he talks about how he actually believes a version of hell is having to repeat the same thing over and over. I don't think any of you are going to be reading any of his books anytime soon, so I'll spoil the Dark Tower for you: the gunslinger is doomed to continually repeat his quest to reach the dark tower forever, but with one caveat in the last few pages. He's actually atoned for one of his mistakes en route to the tower, so it's my contention that he is actually on his road to redemption.

Anyway, it's just interesting to think about how this relates to our everyday lives. While we don't repeat exact sequences and events in our lives over and over, but we do have similar trials and experiences through which we try and perfect ourselves until eventually we do overcome and find our own sort of redemption. Part of the human experience is being endowed with weakness and just general difficulty, and in the process of trying to overcome them, we find godliness.

So who knew Groundhog Day was such a deep movie? There ya go.

Random Thoughts

aBear with me, some of this might be interesting to you.

I went running last night at the gym because that's what you do on a Saturday night and your wife isn't in town. I loved it. I was listening to an episode of This American Life and it just kinda got me thinking about some things.

The episode in question was about jobs, stimulating the economy, that sort of thing. They talked at length about Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin and some campaign promises about bringing back over 250k jobs to the state. The reporters questioned him at length about his philosophy and what it meant to be bringing back jobs.
The funny thing about the report was that the reporters just seemed to have a pretty fundamental lack of understanding about conservative politics. They just didn't get how Walker wanted to shrink the size of government and give incentives to businesses and stimulate the economy through economic growth rather than intervention. One of the reporters even made the point that by reducing taxes, the governor was promoting growth in the short term, but ultimately that would lead to a long term reduction in quality employees because people wouldn't come out well educated and they would be worse off as employees.

I marveled at that assumption: spending on education=better students/employees, etc. If the US is not already at the top of the list for spending on education then it's very close to it, but has that really meant better educated? Not necessarily. We are in dire need of some education reform. Other countries that are spending less are getting more out of their students. Why would that be the case?

One thought that came through my head was because of greater character and integrity. Someone with integrity naturally demands a lot out of him(her)self. If we fail to instill that in ourselves and in those around us, then no amount of spending will make up for the loss in quality of person, no?

That thought caused me to think about an article I read earlier this week that someone somewhere linked to about What's Wrong with Teenager's Minds. The writer speaks about how kids are reaching puberty at earlier ages than ever before, but reach adulthood at much later years. It's an interesting read.

And then that got me thinking about a conversation Amy and I had last week about how funny some parents are with their kids. Nowadays it kind of seems like some church members will have a newborn and then take Sundays off for a couple months like they've been given a free pass. I can't refer to any actual numbers and I probably sound judgmental, but that's just the feeling I get from people, you know? And we both remarked at how people from previous generations would have never let that stop them from attending Sunday meetings, how people with greater "awareness" and more available knowledge seem to be able to do less with it than before. Like I said, I'm not speaking to anything specific, just a feeling I have.

Last random thought from today: I got to sit in on a combined priesthood/relief society meeting because of it being the 5th Sunday. (Although I love my calling in the primary, oh how I miss regular church.) The subject was the priesthood and ward members submitted questions they had about it. I was surprised at how little knowledge some of the leaders had about the priesthood, but that's not my thought. One person asked about how he(she?) had heard of a sister bear testimony about giving a blessing by the authority of her husband's(dad's?) priesthood. The question was if that was proper. This isn't my thought either, but I'll finish this part to get to what I want to share. The bishop answered and said that the spirit will dictate what is proper in what circumstances, and while it's probably improper to mimic a priesthood blessing without being conferred the priesthood, faith can do great things.  I thought that was well put. I really do like our bishop.

This brings me to my thought:A sister behind me asked if the person was healed as a result. If so, then there's your answer, meaning that it would indeed be proper to act in such a manner, but I thought that was making too large of a jump. The reason that the person was or wasn't healed has to do with whether it was God's will. The outcome is not relevant to how the miracle happened because in the end, God's will supersedes all of that. Just because you got the desired outcome doesn't mean it was carried out in the proper manner. I won't bother with examples.

And there you have it. G'night, y'all.

Giving

This is a little late in coming, but still a great article by Jeff Jacoby. This is a big chunk of the article, but check it out:

I wouldn't presume to argue with the pope about the religious significance of Christmas, and I will readily acknowledge that the holiday shopping season can certainly be stressful, expensive, and more than a little materialistic. Nonetheless, as a measure of cultural and communal health, I can't help seeing this yearly impulse to shower friends and family with presents as one of our society's most endearing and heartening traits.

Ten days ago I took my 8-year-old son Micah to a local Dollar Tree Store, where he was eager to spend his savings -- 11 dollars and change, grubbily folded into a miniature wallet -- on Chanukah gifts for his family. We had done this together last year, and Micah had been besieging me to pick an evening when the two of us could make a return trip.

I found it a wonderful experience, no irony intended. Dollar Tree isn't exactly Tiffany & Co., and in any case Micah chooses gifts with all the sophistication and refinement you'd expect from a rambunctious third-grade boy who loves bugs and can never seem to keep his shirt tucked in. The presents he picked out for his mother included a desktop picture frame for her office, glow-in-the-dark necklaces ("Mama can wear them if she goes for a walk at night"), and two boxes of Milk Duds; for his teen-age brother he found an air horn, Lemonheads, and a container of "noise putty" that emits flatulent sounds when poked. A devotee of Martha Stewart Living the kid is not.

But whatever Micah may have lacked in style and taste, he more than made up for with the unfeigned delight he brought to the whole project. He couldn't wait to turn his little clutch of dollars into presents for the people he loves. He wasn't consciously trying to be altruistic or selfless; and he's never given 30 seconds' thought to the meaning of generosity. He was simply excited by the prospect of giving -- and indeed, when the moment came a few nights later to bestow his gifts on his recipients, he was practically bouncing up and down with elation.

If this is crass commercialism, let's have more of it.

Would modern society really be improved if the happiness of gift-giving were not an integral part of one special season each year? Granted, anything can be overdone, and materialism is no exception. And it is important to remember that the hustle and pressure of buying presents for loved ones doesn't reduce our obligation to give charitably and generously to the poor.

But how diminished our culture would be without that hustle and pressure. Children learn an important lesson when they see the adults in their world treat the joy of others as a priority worth spending time, money, and thought on. No one has to teach kids to be acquisitive and selfish -- that comes naturally -- but what an inestimable asset they acquire when they find out for themselves that it really is more blessed to give than to receive.

It is only a coincidence of the calendar that links Christmas and Chanukah; theologically the two holidays have little in common. But essential to both Judaism and Christianity is the principle of imitatio Dei, of striving to walk in God's ways, above all by being kind to others as He is kind to us. Isn't that what underlies the expense and scramble of our holiday gift-giving? In lavishing gifts on others, we reflect the openhandedness with which God lavishes gifts on us. Maybe that's not the entirety of the season's "true joy and true light." But if my 8-year-old's unaffected joyfulness is any indication, it makes a great start.

Hope your Christmas was merry and bright. 

Feels Like the First Time

I heard about this over the weekend, but only just now saw the video. This is probably the sweetest thing you'll ever see.


Here's an article that has a little bit more to say about it. The woman speaks very clearly and in the article she mentions that she's always worked really hard at her grammar and speaking so that she would fit in. It's just such a sweet moment. I dare you not to cry.

Life in a Day

One of my favorite blog reads these days has been the National Geographic Travel blog. I know that I've said that a few times before on here. They always post fun things on there, this movie trailer being one of them and I thought I'd advertise it for y'all. Something about it made me feel kind of emotional. It looks so interesting to me. And then I lamented that we don't really have more independent theaters around here even though the Sundance Film Festival takes place right around the corner from us. Weird.

A caption for the video reads:

What happens when you send a request out to the world to chronicle, via video, a single day on Earth? You get 80,000 submissions and 4,500 hours of footage from 192 countries. Producer Ridley Scott and Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald took this raw material — all shot on July 24, 2010 — and created Life in a Day, a groundbreaking, feature-length documentary that portrays this kaleidoscope of images we call life. National Geographic is bringing it to theaters starting July 24, 2011. Prepare to be amazed.

Amy and I went on a date with a couple that lives downstairs from us. They just got married about a month ago and I think we're going to become really good friends with them. Couples dating is really funny. We walked down one night and invited them to dinner and to play games with us and it felt like asking for a date. Amy and I had a post-game chat afterwards about how much we liked them. You know what else? They asked for the next date with us while we were still on the date, so you know that one went well. Plus, they friended us on FB the very next morning.

Really, we have been so blessed to have so many people around us that we love spending time with. We are never hurting for things to do or people to hang out with, and I couldn't love it more. The people in our lives are easily the greatest blessings that we have, of which there are many. It's really great.

Saying Sorry

I read a pretty cool article this morning by Chuck Colson, former council to President Nixon during the Watergate scandal. You can read the article here. He went to prison for a time, found God, then went on a crusade to help other prisoners find religion.

And now some excerpts. He brings up an interesting point here about how the secularization of society brings about a moral relativity that negates the need for seeking and expressing forgiveness:

The ability to forgive is one of the most powerful forces for good in any society. It can reconcile the most grievous altercations, which are an ever-present reality in a fallen world. Forgiveness brings about shalom — the biblical term for concord and harmony — between people who have the greatest differences imaginable and can transform institutions and even warring nations.

America is rightly known for its forgiving nature. The land of second chances, we like to say. What other nation in history has simultaneously fought major world wars against two mighty military powers — Japan and Germany — eventually conquered its attackers, and then turned right around to rebuild the very countries it fought?

And yet in recent years, Americans have become a deeply cynical and unforgiving people. A 1988 Gallup poll revealed that 50 percent of Americans do not believe that they could forgive others; another revealed that “forgiveness is something virtually all Americans aspire to” (94 percent) but “is not something we frequently offer.” Only 48 percent acknowledged attempting to forgive others. And yet, as Melissa Healy, in the Los Angeles Times article “The Science of Forgiveness” noted a few years ago, a refusal to forgive those who have harmed us can increase the risk of heart attacks and depression.

How and why did we reach this tragic place?

Some saw this sad state of affairs coming. In 1973, psychiatrist Karl Menninger wrote a popular book titled Whatever Happened to Sin? Good question. What happened is that sin has become the most politically incorrect subject we can possibly raise in polite company, because it involves being judgmental.

But a society that doesn’t take sin seriously has difficulty taking forgiveness seriously: After all, if nobody does anything wrong, there’s nothing to forgive.

[Emphasis mine] I think he makes a really good point there. In a world where morality is relative, the standards for right and wrong become hazy, leaving many things up to question.

Here is an example of forgiveness that he mentions in the article:

For instance, many years ago, a young woman named Dee Dee Washington sat in a car waiting for her boyfriend, a young man who, unbeknownst to Dee Dee, was purchasing drugs. The boyfriend got into an altercation with the drug dealer, whose name was Ron Flowers. Racing from the scene, Ron pulled out a gun and shot Dee Dee as she waited in the car. She died of her wounds, and Flowers was convicted of her murder.

For 14 years, Ron denied killing Dee Dee. But then he became involved in Prison Fellowship’s ministry. In our Inner-Change Freedom Initiative (IFI), offenders are confronted with the harm they have done to their victims and the families of victims.

Ron finally admitted to the murder. He then wrote to Dee Dee’s mother, Anna Washington, expressing deep remorse for his crime. Every year of Ron’s sentence, Mrs. Washington had written to the parole board urging them to deny him parole. However, the week Ron confessed, Mrs. Washington felt an overwhelming conviction that she should meet with the man who killed her daughter.

When the visit was arranged, a repentant Ron told Mrs. Washington how he had come to kill her precious daughter, and he asked to be forgiven. Mrs. Washington took his hands in hers. “I forgive you,” she said.

I attended Ron’s graduation service in the prison. As he was walking toward me to receive his certificate I saw out of the corner of my eye a tall, handsome, African American woman stand up in the crowd and come toward us. She threw her arms around Ron and announced, “I am the mother of the young girl that Ron murdered.” She proceeded to tell the stunned crowd the story, and ended by declaring, “This young man is my adopted son.”

After his release, Mrs. Washington helped Ron Flowers adjust to life back in the community, invited him over for dinner, and even attended his wedding. This beautiful ending to a tragic story could only happen through God’s grace. Only he can bring about such reconciliation and healing.

I think it's in forgiveness where people do things that are extraordinary, seemingly superhuman.

Just thought that was interesting. Have a good weekend, y'all!

Conan Speaks!

Is there a more gracious person than Conan O'Brien? I posted about his sign-off from NBC and I really appreciated how he handled his situation with so much class. I just loved how he handled that whole thing even though he totally got the raw end of the deal.

Anyway, he was asked to give the commencement speech to the graduating class at Dartmouth college this year. (Here is the text of his speech.) He is self-effacing and very funny throughout the first 16-17 minutes or so. In spite of earlier protests against Bush Sr., he gives the elder statesman some very complimentary remarks which I just love. What's really cool, though, is how thoughtful and personal his comments were to those students. Here's an excerpt I'd like to direct you towards:

Yes, you parents must be patient because it is indeed a grim job market out there. And one of the reasons it's so tough finding work is that aging baby boomers refuse to leave their jobs. Trust me on this. Even when they promise you for five years that they are going to leave—and say it on television—I mean you can go on YouTube right now and watch the guy do it, there is no guarantee they won't come back. Of course I'm speaking generally. 

But enough. This is not a time for grim prognostications or negativity. No, I came here today because, believe it or not, I actually do have something real to tell you.

Eleven years ago I gave an address to a graduating class at Harvard. I have not spoken at a graduation since because I thought I had nothing left to say. But then 2010 came. And now I'm here, three thousand miles from my home, because I learned a hard but profound lesson last year and I'd like to share it with you. In 2000, I told graduates "Don't be afraid to fail." Well now I'm here to tell you that, though you should not fear failure, you should do your very best to avoid it. Nietzsche famously said "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." But what he failed to stress is that it almost kills you. Disappointment stings and, for driven, successful people like yourselves it is disorienting. What Nietzsche should have said is "Whatever doesn't kill you, makes you watch a lot of Cartoon Network and drink mid-price Chardonnay at 11 in the morning."

Now, by definition, Commencement speakers at an Ivy League college are considered successful. But a little over a year ago, I experienced a profound and very public disappointment. I did not get what I wanted, and I left a system that had nurtured and helped define me for the better part of 17 years. I went from being in the center of the grid to not only off the grid, but underneath the coffee table that the grid sits on, lost in the shag carpeting that is underneath the coffee table supporting the grid. It was the making of a career disaster, and a terrible analogy.

But then something spectacular happened. Fogbound, with no compass, and adrift, I started trying things. I grew a strange, cinnamon beard. I dove into the world of social media. I started tweeting my comedy. I threw together a national tour. I played the guitar. I did stand-up, wore a skin-tight blue leather suit, recorded an album, made a documentary, and frightened my friends and family. Ultimately, I abandoned all preconceived perceptions of my career path and stature and took a job on basic cable with a network most famous for showing reruns, along with sitcoms created by a tall, black man who dresses like an old, black woman. I did a lot of silly, unconventional, spontaneous and seemingly irrational things and guess what: with the exception of the blue leather suit, it was the most satisfying and fascinating year of my professional life. To this day I still don't understand exactly what happened, but I have never had more fun, been more challenged—and this is important—had more conviction about what I was doing.

I just think it's so cool how much he insight he gives about how much he was able to grow from what is probably his greatest disappointment. I think Conan just jumped into the short list of people I'd like to meet someday. He just seems awesome. And here's the video if you're interested in watching any of it. He's really funny throughout. You'll be glad you read/watched it.

Interesting Things

I was listening to some talk radio yesterday, Michael Medved specifically. I had kind of forgotten how much I used to like listening to that stuff. I really miss the sports shows, but I do miss listening to Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, and Rush, among others.

Anyway, Medved was talking about a recent Gallup survey that asked what people estimated to be the percentage of gay people in the total population. Before I tell you or link you to anything, what's your guess? 25%? 10%? 5%?

And...

now...

for...

the...

results...

You can see the findings yourself here. I was really surprised at how high the estimates were. Americans estimate that 25% of the population is self-identified as homosexual. Really? 25%? 1 out of 4 people? I just couldn't believe that.

While in San Fran this past weekend, I actually thought a little bit about how openly liberal that city is, but if you're just walking the streets and seeing families and such, it looks pretty much like any other city. I don't remember seeing any obvious gay couples. For the most part, it was just your typical families like anywhere else. Not anything like the numbers that people are estimating.

One popular number that people throw out is 10%. Wrong. That figure was popularized by Alfred Kinsey who did his sex research mostly on prison populations, i.e. a skewed population to begin with. The figures I've heard based on actual research is more in the range of 3-5%, but there was actually a recent study that puts the figure at 1.4%. (For that info, go here for a Medved article about it. For the actual findings, go here.) What's also surprising is that this >2% figure is actually one that is supported by gay advocates (here for that reference).

So what are the implications? Well, it goes to show how loud the voice is that belongs to same-sex advocates for one. More loosely, it also illustrates the weight that they carry in bearing on public perception.

Also read this article recently by Jeff Jacoby. He talks about the ban on circumcision in San Francisco (here for that one). A lot of the reason behind that is the work done by a group who equates circumcision to female genital mutilation, which it is very clearly not at all related.

What's most interesting about that restriction is this fact: In a city wherein we find the largest voice advocating the rights of individuals who number less than 2% of the entire population, we also see a ban on a centuries (millennia, actually) old practice of religious ceremony that also affects a group that numbers less than 2% of the population, Jews. While calling the disagreeing portion of society bigoted for rejecting same-sex marriage, they project their own prejudices on a similarly sized population. Ironic.

More Than a Number!

In the construction of this post I ended up publishing it to see if the formatting was working on some of the elements I wanted to include. It didn't work, so I subsequently deleted it. That's why you've seen a couple lines of this before. Anyway, this is the full post.

A friend of mine had a post recently about not allowing how much you weigh determine your self-worth. You can find her post here. I tried posting a comment on her blog, but for some reason it wasn't working then. I know she comes around here sometimes anyway, so I'll just go ahead and move on with my response here. She comes from an MFT background, so she runs into these issues a good amount, so I have a lot of respect for where she is coming from.

She's right: everyone is worth more than a number. There is a very real concern for women especially about appearance, and all too often, weight literally becomes the measure of attractiveness. An interesting study recently carried out by a BYU professor helps illustrate that even among women who self-report that they have no concerns with body image, they do still subconsciously react to images of obese women. It's actually a pretty interesting study. Read more here.

But...

I don't know. I guess I think it's a bit of an extreme perspective to take. Weight, as indicated by the "enemy" scale, is an objective measure. When it comes down to it, that's what it really is. So there's a part of me that feels like this reaction is just a little too extreme, especially when I consider it with respect to how prevalent obesity is in comparison to eating disorders.

According to the NIMH, eating disorders in 2008 afflicted only about 3% of the female population. Add in the fact that many other women suffer from less severe disorders that probably wouldn't even qualify as disorders in the first-place, and that number no doubt goes up to cover a good amount more of the population, so bump that number up to wherever you please. Let's say 10%? Something like that.

However, the prevalence of obesity is just exploding in the last few decades. I wanted to post it on here (which is what I was trying to post on my blog, but it wasn't working right), but there is a really great powerpoint presentation that the CDC put out that helps illustrate how much obesity is exploding across the country. You can see that here (look at the map). Nationally, about a quarter of the population is overweight, and when you consider that the leading cause of death in the United States is heart disease, an affliction highly associated with obesity, then this is something that is also a very real concern among our population.

This is probably easier for me to say it because I am male and guys are for the most part not tormented to the same extent with body image issues that women are, but the objective measurement that the scale is telling us is not the enemy: the real problem is the subjective interpretation that we bring to it. While knowing how much I weigh does not constitute healthy behavior, it is just one of many possible indicators about where I'm at in terms of my health and can help me make any necessary adjustments. I just think it's a good idea to be a little more moderate in this respect.

I am not a number when it comes to my weight, anymore than I am my IQ, SAT, ACT, GRE, GPA, annual income, height, bowling score, or any other number.

Around the World

I started subscribing to the National Geographic Travel blog a week or so ago and now it's one of my favorite reads each day. There are so many cool things happening all over the world, and they get a pretty good run down on a lot of those things, but, of course, being National Geographic, it also means that there are some really cool pics.

Anyway, they included this quote by Mark Twain today:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

One of today's posts had a link to another site where another guy documented some of the extreme things he did in New Zealand. The guy posted this video of his experience riding on the world's largest swing:

If you can understand what they're saying, the swing operators are pretty funny. It'd be fun to do that and just mess with people, if a little harsh in their language, but what would you expect from guys like that? Or is that an unfair characterization? (Here is the original post.)

Also, the person who writes the Nat'l Geo blog is hosting one of the sessions for Meet, Plan, Go. People are gathering in more than a dozen different cities to discuss how to go about taking significant amounts of time off to travel the world. The author himself (herself?) took off a year with his family - including two kids - to travel the world. Cool, right? These meetings will all be happening concurrently on October 18th. The closest one to here will be in Las Vegas, but there is one in LA.

...when are we going to Europe?

Did you know?

Did you know it's National African-American Women's Fitness/Alcohol Awareness/Cancer Control/Car Care/National Card and Letter Writing/National Child Abuse Prevention/Confederate History/Couple Appreciation/International Customer Loyalty/National Decorating/National Donate Life/Emotional Overeating Awareness/Fresh Florida Tomato/Grange/Holy Humor/National Humor/Informed Woman/Jazz Appreciation/National Kite Month/National Knuckles Down/National Landscape Architecture/

Month of the Young Child/National Occupational Therapy Month/National Pecan Month/National Pet First Aid Awareness/Pharmacists War on Diabetes/Physical Wellness/National Poetry/Prevention of Animal Cruelty/Rosacea Awareness/

School Library Media Month/National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention/National

Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) Education and Awareness/Soyfoods/Straw Hat/Stress Awareness/International Twit Award/Women's Eye Health and Safety/Workplace Conflict Awareness/World Habitat Awareness/National Youth Sports Safety Month?

Seriously.

So celebrate by working out with your favorite female African-American/abstaining from alcohol/eating more antioxidants/writing a card or letter/not visiting your creepy 55 year old single uncle/setting our your General Lee bust on your lawn/sending flowers to your favorite couple/buying your favorite product/decorating your home/donating to pro-life campaigns/putting down that gallon of ice cream/eating a Florida fresh tomato/working on your personal garden/telling a religious joke/telling any joke/enlightening a woman/listening to Duke Ellington/flying a kite/playing a game of marbles/redesigning your front yard/babysitting/helping a stroke victim learning to walk/having pecan pie/putting a bandage on a kitty/not eating so much fatty food/going out for a run/being gentle with your skin/visiting your local library/not allowing your sorority sister to go home with that creechy guy from alpha beta omega/having safe sex/having Silk with your cereal/wearing a straw hat/meditating and breathing deeply/celebrating your favorite twit/not poking girls in the eye/mediating problems in the workplace/visiting a zoo and reading National Geographic/encouraging your local high school to wear safer football helmets!

Please appreciate the effort I put into doing that for you. Please. Sorry that I didn't bother to link something to every day. I just chose some random ones. But you can look it up. April really is the month for all of those.

On a related note, tomorrow is Obsura Day. The day is about celebrating the world's wonders, curiosities, and esoterica. 109 cities are participating and there is a whole range of events and activities available tomorrow. There aren't any around Utah, unfortunately, but LA has several and so does Vancouver. Click on the link above to find out if your city has any special events. The best part? A lot of them are free. Some examples include:

You can descend into the catacombs below Naples, Italy with an art historian; tour Mary's Gone Wild Folk Art & Baby Doll Museum in Supply, North Carolina; experience the powerful Saltsraumen Maestrom near Bodo, Norway; visit Tesla's laboratory on Long Island with GOOD editor Ben Jervey; sneak around the Haunted Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado; go behind the scenes of the Cycladic Museum in Athens, Greece; poke around in the World's Largest Collection of the World's Smallest Versions of the World's Largest Things in Lucas, Kansas; check out the birthplace of the Internet in Los Angeles with Matt Novak of PaleoFuture blog; pass through secret doors on a treasure hunt at the Mansion on O St. in Washington, DC. And much, much, much, MUCH more.

HT to the National Geographic Travel blog. They have some really awesome posts on there. Check it out.

Managing Stress

For my class Neurophysio class all of the students had to go to the Stress Management Lab at BYU and participate in some of the diagnostics that they have there. You can find some of their resources and services that they provide by clicking here.

It's kind of funny and about what you'd expect when you walk in: there is one of those little running water things sounding constantly, a few plants scattered throughout the room, and then a nice big comfortable chair from which to do all of the assessments.

The lab technician has you watch a ball descend up and down and you are supposed to time you breathing according to the rise, falls, and pauses while your heart rate is being monitored. I think it's kind of hokey, but I also kind of like these things too.

I fully recognize the value of meditation/relaxation exercises, and I love the deep-breathing stuff because it really does help to get myself more centered. All of this is part of why I want to get into yoga more, because while it is a work-out and would help with stress, I kind of like the meditative side to it all. In the lab, the person has you progress from 7.0 breaths a minute down to 4.5. If you're interested in checking it out, you can follow that link above and they have the program that is used for free (30 days) and you can even download the audio files after which you pattern your breathing. Know what's kind of cool? There is a deep-breathing exercise machine that you can now purchase at Costco that is the only thing approved by the FDA that is not some type of drug to help lower your blood pressure. You can find that here. It's just kind of cool.

The technician monitoring me noticed right away that I have a pretty strong heart. Ever since I can remember my resting heart rate is somewhere in the low 50s. Yesterday it clocked in at about 51. What's kind of neat is that your sympathetic and parasympathetic systems turn on and off as you inhale and exhale, so your heart naturally rises and falls with every breath you take. My range spread from 40-70 from inhale to exhale.

My favorite part of the thing was when she was showing me how sensitive the instruments are when measuring heart rate and the waves of the beats. Apparently I have a really great ability to center myself and get my autonomic system regular, but there was one point in the session where she asked if my thoughts had drifted off and I had become distracted. Then she hooked me up to the machine to redo that segment, and then asked me to think about different positive thoughts and then anything that is stressful. My heart rate and breathing then started to bounce all over the place. It was crazy to see how much that psycho-physio stuff really can affect your system.

Anyway, just kind of neat.

Friday Round-Up

I know I've done this before, and my readers don't really follow current events or politics as much as I'd like y'all to, but here are some recommendations for some people around the web that you might, possibly, perhaps like to read some more from sometime:

• Jay Nordlinger - this is my guy. I quote him almost every time I have a post on here. He's a genuine person, conservative in his politics, and just a wonderful human being. I even wrote him one time about one of his columns and he actually responded to me. Isn't that cool? It was brief, but still. Anyway, check him out on National Review.
• Jeff Jacoby - Only in the last several months to year have I really started following this guy. Now I get his weekly email that includes his column. He writes for he Boston Globe, but he's got a wonderfully sensible take on just about everything. And he writes about interesting things, but they aren't limited to just your usual current events stuff.
  
• James Taranto - he writes for the Wall Street Journal. He's very quippy, Has just a great take on politics, very grounded. His (usually) daily piece is called Best of the Web Today.
• David Brooks - writes for the NY Times. I used to follow him a lot more than I do now. My less frequent reading of him doesn't owe to anything in particular. He's mostly a moderate writer, but he has a great take that's a slight different spin on things. Good stuff.
• Michael Barone - writes for the Washington Examiner which is by and large, a conservative newspaper. He's a great political analyst and crunches numbers hard, but gives great, very readable insights.

There are a number of others who are good too - Charles Krauthammer, Byron York, Thomas Sowell, among others. They're worth reading. Great commentary.

And I leave you with this Friday song. Not sure why I'm so into it, but it's been my jam this week.

Morning Thoughts About Benevolent Sexism

So everyone knows what hostile sexism is - it's what you typically think of when it comes to sexism generally. Benevolent sexism is a different strand. It is the kind that causes men to open doors, pay for meals, those kinds of things. It's the nice variety. Normally it's accompanied by a paternalistic, talking-down-to kind of patronizing. It can point to really negative behavioral traits, but generally I think it's just being nice, and it's mostly welcome.

Mostly.

Anyway, I started thinking about this on the bus this morning. Actually, I've been thinking about it every time lately on the morning bus ride to Salt Lake because the bus has been unusually full in the last little while. So many people are getting on to ride, in fact, that at least a few people (sometimes many) are left without seats for the 45 minute ride and are left to stand in the aisle. Men will usually get up and allow women to sit in their places, and this morning one man even went so far as to ask some inattentive young man to give up his seat for a woman that was standing in front of him.

It kind of bothered me a little, and here's why: everyone on that bus is on his or her way up to Salt Lake, and it's an early hour, and it requires waiting outside in the cold, 12 degrees this morning to be exact. I used to drive from my place out to a later exit so that I wouldn't have to stay on the bus as long, but with the overcrowding I've taken to getting up earlier to get on at an earlier stop so that I can get my own seat and not have to stand. This is important to me just because I depend on being seated so that I can get a good 30-40 minute nap on the bus before getting to work. I get up earlier and will wait longer if it means I can get a seat. Anyone else can do the same.

I'm not opposed to giving up my seat to a woman. I've done it a few times on the way back to Utah County without complaint or hesitation. I don't mind when everyone has the same opportunity for the same seats, but there is something that bothers me when anyone else can do what I do and just get up a little earlier and make sure you get on the bus before it fills up. I think that taking more time out of my day and getting up earlier is a cost to bear, and with that cost, I expect to have a seat. Is that unreasonable?

In any case, I mostly remove the need to give up my seat by going to the very back of the bus and reserving for myself a window seat. Turns out people won't ask you to get up if it's really inconvenient to get to your seat. And that is the benefit to being observant.

How to Parent

Did anyone see the article, Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, last week? Mona Charen over at NRO has a response to the article that you can find here. As you might imagine, the original article is pretty harsh in its tone, the parenting style very brash and demanding. Let me give you some excerpts:

What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America. Once a child starts to excel at something—whether it's math, piano, pitching or ballet—he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the child to work even more...

The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable—even legally actionable—to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, "Hey fatty—lose some weight." By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of "health" and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image. (I also once heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her "beautiful and incredibly competent." She later told me that made her feel like garbage.)

Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best. Chinese parents can say, "You're lazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you." By contrast, Western parents have to struggle with their own conflicted feelings about achievement, and try to persuade themselves that they're not disappointed about how their kids turned out...

I've noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

There were over 4,000 comments to the article, which is a record for the WSJ. It elicited a lot of strong feelings from parents.

But maybe not as negative in their reactions as you might expect. Charen points out, "The tiger mothers may overdo it a bit — but let’s face it, many American parents are too reluctant to demand work that isn’t “fun” and too ready to believe that our children have something to teach us rather than the other way around."

Admittedly, I don't know anything about parenting from my own experience. I can only conjecture about what I would do or how I might react given certain situations, but I don't know what kind of temperament my kids will have, or how even my own response while actually in that role of parent. However, I think there is some merit to what the author mentions.

There is such a strong push in our society to protect and boost self-esteem, but as Chua points out, depression, anxiety, and other related disorders run rampant, and maybe more now than ever before in spite of our best efforts to coddle and protect. I think there is some sense to her assertion that it's good to assume strength and not fragility. Her harsh manner is very likely not the best method for raising children, but the tendency to be too soft and too lenient probably overrides much too often. As members of the Church, if we have those expectations when it comes to morality, would it be that much of a stretch to have similar expectations in other arenas of life?

Just some thoughts while I'm waiting for our server to get back online.

The Present Madness

I trust that you heard about the shootings over the weekend, right? Down in Tuscon, a congresswoman, federal judge, and several other people were shot and killed by a gunman. Rep. Giffords (D) is in critical condition, but apparently she is improving. There's a lot of controversy being stirred up by various news sources about how this was a politically motivated shooting that occurred because of the climate that's being fostered by the right. Where was this kind of talk last year when that guy opened-fire at Ft. Hood and it actually was a politically motivated shooting? He was a Muslim extremist, but the call was for everyone to calm down and look at it rationally. Now people are jumping on the Tea Party and saying that this is somehow tied to Sarah Palin.

How is that even remotely the case? When does anyone on the right EVER advocate any sort of violence whatsoever? Absurd. All of this, in fact, obscures the real issue. Mona Charen mentions it briefly in this piece here. The most obvious explanation for what happened over the weekend was that this guy was a paranoid schizophrenic who had a grudge against the congresswoman. Schizophrenia was what afflicted John Lennon's killer, Ronald Reagan's attempted assassin, and the kid who went into a grocery store in Irvine several years ago with a samurai sword. It afflicts more men than women, and typically sets in during a person's 20s. We talked about it at length yesterday in my Biological Psych class.

Anyway, my guy, Jay Nordlinger, had this to say about it:

The shooting in Arizona has nothing to do with politics. Nothing to do with Republicans, nothing to do with conservatism. It has nothing to do with the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, you, or me. From what we know, a young psychotic got it into his psychotic head that he would shoot the local congressman, who happened to have a “D.” after her name, rather than an “R.” But the goons and ghouls have pretended that the Republicans spurred this.

And here we are, talking about the massacre and the Republicans, the massacre and national politics, as though there were any connection between these things.

A psychotic described by his classmates as a left-wing pothead shoots a bunch of people. And in the dock is that famous left-wing pothead Sarah Palin. Great, just great. May I pose a question? If the wounded congressman were a Republican instead of a Democrat -- I believe the dead judge was a Republican -- would we be having a discussion about the massacre and national politics? Would anchormen be running to the scene of the crime?

Jeff Danziger has drawn another odious cartoon, the kind he has long specialized in: Out of a steaming teapot arises an assassin. Get it? The Tea Party. Cool! That’s the way the likes of Danziger want it to be, and practically need it to be. That’s the way they wish it were -- no matter what the reality.

I am speaking of the following attitude: A right-winger, instead of a Communist, should have shot Kennedy. A right-winger, instead of a Palestinian immigrant, should have shot Bobby. A right-winger -- a Tea Partier! -- instead of a young, untreated schizo, should have shot Giffords and those others. I believe that is the attitude on display in that cartoon, and elsewhere.

To say it once more, the Left has kind of won: because we are having a discussion about the Arizona shooting and Republicanism, the Arizona shooting and Sarah Palin, which is not much different from having a discussion about the Arizona shooting and, oh, I don’t know: the price of eggs in Dakar.

Chances are, the Arizona massacre will hurt the Republican party and the Tea Party, stopping or slowing their momentum. Because the Left, “respectable” and not, has, I believe, succeeded in associating the massacre in the public mind with the “Right.” A “veteran Democratic operative” told Politico that President Obama and his team “need to deftly pin this on the Tea Partiers.” Oh, I’m not sure they have to be so deft about it. The Danziger-Krugman way will probably work just fine.

What the irresponsible Left has done in this instance -- in its exploitation of a massacre -- is so low, so foul, so disgusting, I barely have the words. I mean, turn Paul Wellstone’s funeral into a political rally if you want to. But this? As I said on the Bennett radio show, I’m not a blushing violet, and I know that politics is rough. But to pretend that a murder spree by a psychotic has something to do with those of us who oppose the Democrats’ health legislation and other measures -- this is beyond the pale, way beyond it.

I’ve said it before: There are angels and demons on both the right and the left. Neither side has a monopoly on virtue, or its opposite. I’ve made some people chuckle by saying, “Most of the worst people I have known have been on the right. Why? Because I have known so many people on the right! My jobs have seen to that.” I know a lot of angels and demons -- of different political stripes.

But the Left’s reaction to this Arizona massacre -- “Mission Accomplished, Sarah Palin,” and all that? Very, very hard to take. It is indeed hard to share a conversation, a political culture, a society, with such people.

Just thought you should know.