Clock watching for Lent

The churches I attend (I'm currently visiting around) don't, in general, observe Lent. But I do. One thing I cut out for the season is computer games. It was time to admit that once I got going on spider solitaire I was apt to not surface for a while. There are better uses for my time, and if I'm going to damage my wrist, it ought to be while helping keep a roof over our heads or food on the table, or otherwise accomplishing something.

One of the other things I did was to decide to corral my online time. I was letting myself get sucked into surfing. A little surfing isn't a bad thing. But I was doing rather more than a little, and it seemed a good idea to corral it.

Cutting computer games was straightforward enough: if you go cold turkey you go cold turkey. But setting boundaries gets a little trickier than setting prohibitions. I decided to try to limit myself to not before noon and not after five. I wasn't planning on spending noon to five online, mind you. I was just going to concentrate on offline work all morning; if my offline projects went past noon, fine. If I got busy and couldn't get to my computer before five, I was going to skip the online world for the day. If I did get online, I was going to bail off as soon as I was done with what I was doing, or five or thereabouts at the latest.

It seemed a pretty good plan. And it has been a pretty good plan, all in all. The one big downside is that sometimes I'm finding myself repeatedly checking the clock during the pre-noon hours.

This morning, I had to laugh at myself. I got an earlier than usual start on the day, and I was sailing through both work and breaks. I even got a walk in before breakfast. I'm in one of my gimpy phases, and it was only a walk around the block using my cane, but I was pretty proud of myself for getting it done. I cleaned out the fridge. I got my Bible reading done. I read a few more chapters in a history book I'm reading. I laid in plans for stuff I need to do for the bookstore. I worked on book reviews and blog posts in my head. (That's probably cheating, I know, but there it is.) And so there I was, with blog posts in my head, and I looked at the clock and it was only 9:20. Before I caught myself, I exclaimed, right out loud, "It's only 9:20?!"

And then I laughed and laughed at myself. There weren't any other people around, by the way. And I hadn't exactly been asking God to check the time for me. I was just surprised at how long a morning can be when I get up early, and also cut out the worst time wasting activities.

When I got my breath back, I tried to think what I should be working on, other than blogging. And I got to work. And while I was working, it suddenly struck me, right out of the blue, that I had a serious error in a novel I'm writing. If we were being polite, we could call it a continuity error. Let us be frank and admit that I suddenly realized that something I had in the ending made no sense at all if you remembered a couple of things from the middle of the book. Yinga. I only started this book late last September, so I expect to have bugs to work out of it yet. But this was a doozy. It's a fantasy novel, or, at least, one set in an imaginary future. It's not like I can go to a reference and straighten myself out that way. It's a challenge to keep it tied together properly.

The mistake is fixed now, I think. I took those hours that looked terribly long until I could get online, and worked on my fiction, and the time was gone, just like that. In fact, it was after noon before I shook loose to come in here.

I've missed a couple of days of online time (five o'clock can come early, if you aren't careful), so I have some catching up to do, with bookstore-related work on top of the list, and blogging at the bottom. Expect blogging to be light for a while yet.

On the other hand, I've done some serious decluttering in the house, I've discovered a new bread recipe that we like a lot, I'm getting some serious spring cleaning done, the mending pile has been wiped out (how'd we get so many loose buttons?), a quilt that I'm finishing by hand is finally taking shape, and I'm having a blast.

If you're used to coming here for news, I'm sorry. I needed a break from news, I guess. What with better weather, longer hours of daylight, getting the house better organized and cleaned up, and avoiding the squabbles dear to the hearts of advocates and radicals of one stripe and another, I feel like I'm getting recharged. Well, except for some mornings, when I catch myself clock watching, and it feels like the time is dragging...

How does the saying go?: Good plan, needs work.

Author note: D. E. Stevenson

A fan of D.E. Stevenson must have stumbled across this post from June 2006 and sent word around, because off and on for days now I've been getting more entry hits on that page than on any other. Whoever you are, thanks!

(And isn't it nice when a good, clean author has so many fans? Yes! Love it!)

Adapting bikes for the disabled

You might be surprised who can ride a bike, if the bike is adapted to their abilities. See Adapting Bikes for the Disabled, by Karen Karvonen, American Profile, December 23, 2007 for some success stories. See also Project Mobility.

Recipe contests and prize giveaways at Country Woman

Country Woman magazine is looking for great beef recipes, and has some prize money on offer for those they like best.

For that matter, they're hosting a number of drawings and contests. (One of the upcoming drawings is for a fancy slow cooker. I know from your blogs that some of you are quite appreciative of slow cookers. The deadline on that one is Feb. 29.)

Author note: Dwight Newton

Eric Golden has written a nice feature article on author Dwight Newton, aka D.B. Newton, aka Dwight Bennett, aka Dwight Bennett Newton, aka Hank Mitchum: "Prolific Bend author's muse is right outside: Dwight Newton, 92, has written TV westerns, 70 novels" (The Bulletin, Feb. 11, 2008)

Even if you don't read Westerns, you might find the man's life interesting. He took the trouble to get a master's degree in history very early in his career, for instance. And then the Army planted him in his beloved West during World War II (that graduate degree helped keep him stateside). And he found Hollywood vain and vicious, so he wrote a book about it. And... well, it's a good article. Read it if you want more. My thanks to Mr. Golden and The Bulletin.

Winter loosened its grip...

... a bit around here this week. It's been a harder than average winter, with more snow than we've seen in a long time, and some nasty cold snaps, so the respite has been pretty nice.

At the bank, my teller mentioned that it was nice to have sunshine and warmer weather, and I agreed. I volunteered that it had set off a round of spring cleaning at our place. She brightened, and said, "Me, too!" A woman after my own heart. We agreed that we both disliked carpets, too. It's too hard to keep them really clean. I assure you that mine are cleaner than a week ago. I own a carpet cleaning machine, so I can work on my floors a little at a time instead of all at once, like I'd have to do if I rented a machine. This week, though, I did a bit more than a little. (The exercise is good for me, right?)

I think I would have been cleaning extra this week even without the taste of spring to spur me on. This time of year the house tends to feel stale and grungy, the air old and used. If a person doesn't go on the attack, the staleness can get discouraging.

And, besides which, a person who shall remain nameless tripped while carrying split pea soup into the dining room. Split pea soup, I found, defies the laws of physics when it flies out of a bowl. Not only does it cover more surface area than should be possible, it finds its way into places it shouldn't be able to reach. Do you have that problem in your dining room and kitchen? That they somehow have the ability to amplify messes? (I'm joking. But just barely. Oh, well. The walls in there hadn't been scrubbed in a while. They're nice and fresh now.)

And, besides which, I've been having computer problems, or, rather, connecting to the internet problems. You have heard the saying: "A clean house is the sign of a broken computer."? It's not strictly true around here, since I do possess a little discipline, thank you. But still, it is rather surprising how much more I can get done in a day when surfing isn't an option. I am forever trying to find a happy medium on time spent online. (Aren't you?)

So, all in all, I've had a good week. I just haven't been on the internet. It was kind of a nice break, actually.

I know it's rather poor form to take a blog break and not announce it, but at first I couldn't seem to get on to announce it. And then I got busy with spring cleaning and with reading like mad through my to-read stack, and with quilting, and with editing some nonblog writing, and... and the next thing I knew the days had flown. My apologies to anyone who had a twinge of worry on my account. I know better than to take off without notice. I'll try to not do it too often.

The Saturday Review of Books...

... is up and growing at Semicolon.

Book note: No Country For Old Men, by Cormac McCarty

From A Worldview Clash in View -- A Gift from Literature at AlbertMohler.com:

The clash between fundamental worldviews is often difficult to capture, but sometimes literature does what a news report cannot. Consider this passage from Cormac McCarty's novel, No Country for Old Men. In this passage, one of the main characters reflects on this clash:

Here a year or two back me and Loretta went to a conference in Corpus Christi and I got set next to this woman, she was the wife of somebody or other. And she kept talking about the right wing this and the right wing that.

I aint even sure what she meant by it. The people I know are mostly just common people. Common as dirt, as the sayin goes. I told her that and she looked at me funny. She thought I was sayin something bad about em, but of course that's a high compliment in my part of the world. She kept on, kept on.

Finally told me, said: I don't like the way this country is headed. I want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion. And I said well mam I don't think you got any worries about the way the country is headed. The way I see it goin I don't have much doubt but what she'll be able to have an abortion. I'm goin to say that not only will she be able to have an abortion, she'll be able to have you put to sleep. Which pretty much ended the conversation.

That exchange also pretty much sums up the clash of worldviews. Sometimes literature captures a universe of meaning in a minimum of words.

Full post here.

Bradley Walker, on accepting the hand you're dealt

[ed. note: edited Feb. 10]

Bradley Walker, can't walk (he was born with muscular dystrophy), but he can soar. Amongst other things, he's been making waves and winning awards in bluegrass circles. He's also said to be a very likeable young man. See Singing Without Limits - American Profile (1/20/2008) for the story. Mr. Walker's website is here.

From the American Profile article:

A native of Athens, Ala. (pop. 18,967), Walker, 29, lives in a home he designed in nearby East Limestone, not far from the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, where he works as a materials analyst. He drives himself to work in a customized van and also frequently drives the 100 miles to Nashville by himself. He made the trip frequently while recording his debut album, Highway of Dreams, between the four 10-hour shifts he works each week at the plant.

“The way I was raised, you don’t focus on your limitations,” Walker says. “You focus on finding ways to get things done. Everyone faces challenges in getting where they want to go. I believe you just have to go out there, work hard and prove yourself.”

[...snip...]

Those two qualities—his distinctive voice and his friendly personality—come up constantly among Walker’s supporters. “There’s a timbre to his voice that seems so genuine and real, and it captures the emotion of every song he sings,” says Dan Hays, executive director of the International Bluegrass Music Association. “He’s also just a wonderfully likable guy. I don’t know anybody who’s been around Bradley who hasn’t become an instant friend. That’s just his personality.”

Walker, meanwhile, is just happy to be doing what he loves. “I’ve never questioned the hand I was dealt,” he says. “If I hadn’t been dealt this hand, I might not have been given the gift of music that I love so much, and I wouldn’t be singing bluegrass to people. So I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Read the full article.

Hats off.

Sherwood Forest Plantation

We were discussing Robin Hood yesterday, which brings to mind...

Did you know that United States President John Tyler called his home Sherwood Forest Plantation?

From the Sherwood Forest Plantation - Home of President John Tyler website:

The plantation, first recorded in a 1616 land grant, was originally known as Smith's Hundred. The house, circa 1720, is a classic example of Virginia Tidewater design: big house, little house, colonnade, and kitchen. It had several owners before Tyler purchased the home and its surrounding 1,600 acres in 1842. He bought the plantation from his cousin, Collier Minge, while he was still in the White House and renamed the plantation "Sherwood Forest" referring to his reputation as a political outlaw.

[...snip...]

Sherwood Forest Plantation remains the longest frame house in America -- expanded to its present length of over 300 feet in 1845 when Tyler added a 68-foot ballroom catering to the popular dance of his time, the Virginia Reel. The grounds are 25 acres of terraced gardens and lawn based on the landscape designs of Andrew Jackson Downing of New York and include original outbuildings or dependencies. It is considered one of the most complete plantation yards left in America, dating from c. 1680.

The Saturday Review of Books...

...is up and growing at Semicolon.

The lead-in quote this week is from Gilbert Highet. He built a reputation in his own right, notably at Columbia University, and famously for his support of classical learning. But he's also known for being the husband of suspense writer Helen MacInnes. (Wouldn't you have loved to have been able to invite that couple over for dinner and chat?)

Previous related posts:
Book note: Above Suspicion by Helen MacInnes, Feb. 16, 2007
A focus on author Helen MacInnes, March 6, 2006 (links to Helen MacInnes posts at Bookworm Room)

Those of you who have written Helen MacInnes or Gilbert Highet posts, please feel free to drop a note in the comments, steering us that way. It doesn't have to be straight MacInnes. See Cold War Reading Has Contemporary Applications, at The Common Room, March 9, 2006, for an example.

For that matter, if you have any posts about good Cold War novels by any author, let us know. In the good timing department, I picked up No Entry by Manning Coles yesterday to reread, and was just getting into the thick of it last night when I had to call it a night. I sternly told myself I must finish my chores today before I pick it back up, since I expect once I get going again I'm sunk for the next few hours...

Down memory lane... and asking craft advice

Remember the Lennon Sisters? Did you know you can buy a reproduction of the rag dolls that Kathy and Janet used to haul around on tour when they were kids? They're called Best Pals dolls.

I saw part of an interview with one of the sisters rebroadcast on television the other day, as part of a Lawrence Welk broadcast. That's where I heard about the dolls for the first time.

After seeing the interview, I was thinking that it might be fun to stock rag dolls in our bookstore, but I'm thinking I might make my own. It can't be all that hard, right? (She says, with the bravery of ignorance, and knowing full well she's not all that handy with a needle... :)

If anyone has tips or tricks or warnings about making rag dolls or other toys that don't distract the kid with too many overfancy features, please weigh in. These days, there seems to be a general lack of dolls that are nothing but cuddly, for little girls to take to bed and carry everywhere. There's no reason we couldn't change that, is there?

YoungLives program for teen moms

Just in case you're looking for help...

In Young Life, we have the privilege of extending Jesus Christ’s love to kids as they are, where they are. For high school and middle school girls who are expecting or are raising a child on their own, that love takes the form of a program called YoungLives.

Treating each mom and her child or children with unconditional love and respect, YoungLives offers teen moms relief from the isolation and struggle of their daily lives and hope for the future. YoungLives mentors provide friendship, parenting advice and help meeting the practical demands of raising a child. At YoungLives club and camp, moms get to socialize and have fun while their babies get the best possible care.

More information here

Young Life is just one of many places for teens to turn, regardless of what's up (or down) in their lives. I don't know about where you live, but around here there are a number of churches that do a great job of accepting and helping people of all ages regardless of their past, or their present circumstances. Keep looking until you find them. They want to help you.

Update: I should mention that you don't have to be Christian to get help from Young Life, or from most other Christian groups that I know about.

Gearing up for the Oregon Sesquicentennial celebration

Oregon will be celebrating 150 years of statehood in 2009.

If you have an Oregon story to share, stories about "what it means to be an Oregonian" are being collected at Oregon 150: Official Website of the Oregon Sesquicentennial. According to the "open letter to all Oregonians" on the welcome page, you can "write them, sing them, sew them, photograph them, film them, or paint them." (This should be interesting.)

We will pause now to allow persons from the original thirteen colonies and certain foreign countries to catch their breath, after laughing at a big to-do about one whole century and a half of statehood. Hey, for this part of the world it's pretty good.

hat tip: Oregon Department of Fish and Game website

A small technical problem with licenses

From an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, January 11, 2008 press release:

SALEM, Ore.–When you buy your new 2008 fishing or hunting license, don’t put it in a plastic license holder warn Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife staff. Although new license paper is tear resistant and reasonably waterproof, interaction with plastic causes the ink to fade.

“We are asking people to do something different with their new licenses. Please, don’t put them in plastic license holders or laminate them,” said DeAnna Erickson, ODFW License Services manager. She suggests carrying the license holder in your wallet as you would a receipt or using a paper or Tyvek license holder.

Tyvek license holders will be available at ODFW offices beginning in mid-February.

hat tip: Blue Mountain Eagle, Jan. 16, 2008 dead tree edition

The 'patron saint' of drug pushers, coming to a neighborhood near you

From Mexican Robin Hood figure gains a kind of notoriety abroad by Kate Murphy (International Herald Tribune, February 8, 2008):

HOUSTON: Jesús Malverde has been revered for almost a century in northwestern Mexico. According to folklore, he was a Mexican Robin Hood who took from the rich and gave to the poor until he was killed by the police in 1909.

Now, immigrants have brought his legend to the United States. His image, which is thought to offer protection from the law, can be found on items that include T-shirts and household cleaners.

Malverde is widely considered the patron saint of drug dealers, say law enforcement officials and experts on Mexican culture. A shrine has been erected atop his grave in the remote city of Culiacán in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, which has long been associated with opium and marijuana trafficking.

"The drug guys go to the shrine and ask for assistance and come back in big cars and with stacks of money to give thanks," said James Creechan, a Canadian sociologist and adjunct professor at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa in Culiacán.

But Creechan, who presented a paper on Malverde to the American Society of Criminology in 2005, added that the poor also pray to Malverde for money and safe passage across the border into the United States.

An influx of immigrants from the Sinaloan region in recent years has made Malverde's image increasingly visible on this side of the border, particularly in the Southwest and in California. His legend has spread among Hispanics, Creechan said, inspiring many to build altars to Malverde in their homes, as well as to wear Malverde cologne.

His image, which looks suspiciously like that of Pedro Infante, the Mexican matinee idol of the 1940s, appears on T-shirts and patches sewn on jackets and backpacks. Busts of Malverde can be seen next to cash registers at restaurants, bars and discos.

Read the rest. Please note that in the next to last paragraph it states Malverde is not recognized as a saint by the Catholic church. Please also note that it's a pretty safe bet that the Catholic church frowns on asking saints to protect immoral behavior.

From the same article:

Indeed, drug enforcement authorities in Mexico and the United States said Malverde statues, tattoos and amulets can be tip-offs to illegal activity.

"We send squads out to local hotel and motel parking lots looking for cars with Malverde symbols on the windshield or hanging from the rearview mirror," said Sergeant Rico Garcia with the narcotics division of the Houston Police Department. "It gives us a clue that something is probably going on."

Courts in California, Kansas, Nebraska and Texas have ruled that Malverde trinkets and talismans are admissible evidence in drug and money-laundering cases.

"It's not a direct indication of guilt, but it would definitely be used in combination with other things" like piles of cash, baggies and scales, said José Martinez, a special agent with the federal Drug Enforcement Agency.

Ah, yes, nothing like having crooks who advertise...

As a side note, I have come to believe that the popular rendition of Robin Hood being someone who took from the rich (simply because they were rich) to give to the poor isn't adhering to the best of the legends. I prefer the 'Robin of Locksley fighting evil Prince John until King Richard can return and save his loyal Saxon subjects from slaughter and starvation at the hands of cruel and heartless Normans' theme. In those versions, he does indeed steal from the rich, but he's generally stealing back what was taken from honest folk. The people he's helping are, on the whole, in danger of starving to death if they don't get help. This isn't a rich man versus poor man battle, in other words. It's refusing to let your neighbors be wiped off the face of the Earth by people who are abusing their positions of power. It's providing for the needy, not simply redistributing goods. It's fighting injustice because it is injustice. It's loyalty and bravery personified. Admittedly, I switched to this view of Robin Hood after watching Richard Greene's portrayal of him... (Richard Greene has my vote for best onscreen Robin Hood. Who has yours?)

And, for the record, I'm pretty sure I have both Norman and Saxon blood in my veins, amongst other ethnic groups. That many of my ancestors were mortal enemies, at least off and on through the ages, doesn't bother me any. This is America, the land of burying the hatchet. (Or, at least, that's the ideal.)

Wikipedia has several articles on Robin Hood, including this one that tracks the legend through the centuries. Robin Hood has been the best of the best of men, and the worst of the worst, as well as all sorts of in between, it looks like. In glancing through that article, I came across a footnote for this short BBC article from October 2006, about a Master's program for students of the legend. The university promoting such a degree? Nottingham University. Are we surprised?

Lent links

Former atheist Jennifer F. writes about why she loves Lent. (Via Patrick O'Hannigan.)

See also this about an Anglican family's Lenten practices.

Archbishop Chaput of Denver has some recommended readings for Lent. Elsewhere at the same website, here are some more recommended readings/reflections. Should I be surprised that The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis is on the list? I wasn't dropped-jaw surprised, but I was surprised.

Chivalry revisited

Some thoughts on being ladies and gentlemen, from a mother who is raising gentlemen.

I'll admit I had to learn to accept good manners with good grace. I know that sounds funny, but I hit college in the 1970s, and was encouraged to sneer and snap at men who offered to hold a door, and heaven help a fellow who tried to help you on with your coat. Very sad. (Not to mention stupid. What were we thinking, discouraging kindness and consideration?)

Related, from November 2005: Tell me again why guys shouldn't open doors for us...

Orthodox missions in the United States, and religion in Las Vegas

The Orthodox Church in America has a program to help establish Orthodox missions in the United States and Canada. So far close to thirty missions have been helped. Thumbnail article here. Short podcast here, at Ancient Faith Radio (look for the Feb. 2, 2008 podcast).

The Director of the OCA's Department of Evangelization, Archpriest Eric Tosi, is based in Las Vegas, Nevada. In the podcast linked above he says people are generally surprised to hear that OCA has a church in Las Vegas. In fact, there are six Orthodox churches there, he says.

So... your blog hostess googles... to find our more about population and churches and other related stuff about Las Vegas. From the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce website, under Relocating: Churches/Places of Worship:

Visitors are often surprised to learn Las Vegas has nearly 600 churches, temples and synagogues representing more than 63 faiths.

The city offers a smorgasbord of religious options -- everything from a Buddhist Temple to the Church of Scientology to a non-denominational service in a hotel/casino showroom.

A good place to check for local church services is the Saturday edition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and The Las Vegas Sun and the weekly publication, The View, available every Wednesday. Additional information is available on the Review-Journal’s web site: http://www.lvrj.com/.

That, and a link to churches that are members of the Chamber, is it on the Churches/Places of Worship page. Uhm, I think I'll keep my commentary to myself on this...

Your hostess googles some more...

Ah, here we go, this is more like it: LasVegasOrthodox.com. From there, you can find out more about The Life-Giving Spring Retreat Center, or about St. Paul the Apostle Orthodox Church. At the church site, there's A Brief Biography of Archpriest Eric George Tosi. It seems he had a rather interesting road to the priesthood:

Fr. Eric was born in Passaic, New Jersey, the third of four children of George and Evelyn Tosi. He was baptized in Holy Annunciation Orthodox Church in Clifton, New Jersey where his grandparents were founding members. He grew up in devout Orthodox family in Little Falls, New Jersey. His family moved to Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church in Wayne, New Jersey when he was a youth. He was involved in many youth programs at the Church including working at St. Andrew’s Camp in Jewell, NY (where he met his future wife).

He graduated from Passaic Valley High School in 1982 and received an ROTC scholarship to Fordham University in The Bronx, New York. He was involved in many activities while in college, and was appointed commander of the Corps of Cadets in his senior year being the Distinguished Military Graduate. He received a dual BA in Economics and History upon graduation in 1986. He received a Regular Army commission as Second Lieutenant in Armor. Upon completion of various schools, he was assigned to the 1st Squadron, Second Armored Cavalry Regiment in Bindlach, Germany. His primary job was to patrol the West German border with East Germany and Czechoslovakia. While in Germany, he received Three Army Commendation Medals and One Army Achievement Medal as well as other numerous awards and citations while commanding a tank and scout platoon and as an Executive Officer for a tank company. He also held other staff positions and achieved the rank of Captain. He was present at the fall of the border. He was married in 1988 to the former Christina Lickwar who joined him in Germany.

Upon completion of his military duty in 1990, he returned to the United States and found a position with Strategic Intelligence Systems in New York City. He was the program director for consultants in 42 counties as well as working on high level business briefs. He then went to work for The Economist Intelligence Unit, part of The Economist magazine, where he was a consultant on international business briefs. He completed a MA in European History from Fordham University in 1993.

He entered St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in 1993...

Read the rest

Now, if that doesn't fly counter to a few stereotypes, I'm not sure what would.

I might have mentioned this before, but until I got access to the Internet I thought Orthodox churches had essentially died out in America, if not the world. Silly me. Yay, Internet.

Toddler behavior explained, and an Oregon croc

Gee, do you think that toddlers haven't developed grown-up thinking skills yet? That they have to be taught to behave? That you can't reason with a toddler as if he's an adult?

To some people this is news. From Tara Parker-Pope's article, "Coping With the Caveman in the Crib" (New York Times, February 5, 2008):

Now Dr. [Harvey] Karp, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles, has turned his attention to the toddler years, that explosive period of development when children learn language, motor skills and problem solving, among other things. The rapid pace at which all these changes occur is nothing short of astonishing, but it can also be overwhelming to little brains. A wailing baby is nothing compared with the defiant behavior and tantrums common among toddlers.

In his latest book, “The Happiest Toddler on the Block,” Dr. Karp tries to teach parents the skills to communicate with and soothe tantrum-prone children. In doing so, however, he redefines what being a toddler means. In his view, toddlers are not just small people. In fact, for all practical purposes, they’re not even small Homo sapiens.

Dr. Karp notes that in terms of brain development, a toddler is primitive, an emotion-driven, instinctive creature that has yet to develop the thinking skills that define modern humans. Logic and persuasion, common tools of modern parenting, “are meaningless to a Neanderthal,” Dr. Karp says.

The challenge for parents is learning how to communicate with the caveman in the crib. “All of us get more primitive when we get upset, that’s why they call it ‘going ape,’ ” Dr. Karp says. “But toddlers start out primitive, so when they get upset, they go Jurassic on you.”

Full article here.

So, those of you who have actually raised toddlers to the next stage of human development -- have brought them forward into the Cenozoic, so to speak -- feel free to weigh in.

As for the 'Neanderthals in the Jurassic' business, let's try to remember these people are speaking figuratively here. OK? (And I hope they're joking where they say, "In fact, for all practical purposes, they’re not even small Homo sapiens." Of course they're small Homo sapiens. Exhaustingly immature Homo sapiens, perhaps, but definitely full-fledged members of the species. And sometimes they're even cute. Such a deal.)

Side note: Isn't there some debate on whether Neanderthals were as primitive as depicted in popular culture and some science texts? Isn't it rather more common these days to put them forward as rather more sophisticated than your average toddler? I know, I know, we're speaking figuratively here, and you and I are perfectly capable of enjoying caveman jokes without worrying if they're justified. But still, I would like to note that I don't know if they are justified.

Found while searching for something else about the Jurassic: Photo in the News: Jurassic "Crocodile" Found in Oregon (National Geographic News: March 22, 2007.) That's interesting. I live in eastern Oregon. We have lots of fossils around here, many of them looking rather tropical. (Talk about climate change!) But in this case, the scientists were speculating that this 'croc' started out in Asia and its fossilized remains were propelled by plate tectonics across to our decidedly inland mountains? Hmmm. I guess anything's possible, but... isn't it a bit more likely that it was just a local croc? I guess I'd like to know what sort of rock the fossil was in, and whether it matches Asian rocks with similar fossils.

P.S. I was telling a friend about the supposedly Asian fossil being shoved into our mountains theory, and he said he'd heard that a pterodactyl (aka pterosaur) had carried the croc over and dropped it here. I'm pretty sure he was joking. But, hey, it's a theory... :)

Ladies, you can't have him, he's mine

When my husband wishes me Happy Anniversary in early February every year, he's not marking our wedding day. He is celebrating the day we met.

Honesty (and the love of a good laugh, even at myself) compels me to tell you that the first year after we were married -- the first time he did this, in other words -- I stared at him, dumbfounded. I'd never heard of such a thing. And, ahem, cough, I had to take his word for it. (Blush.) He'd found our meeting so momentous and full of prospects that he'd written it down. I'd, uh, found him intriguing and wonderful and smart and hoped to see him again, preferably just the two of us instead of at another dinner meeting where there were a lot of other people milling about. But I didn't have the wit or foresight (or enough of a romantic bent, apparently) to write it down for future reference. Oops on my part. Hooray for him.

He's never failed to celebrate it since, and I'm charmed and flattered more than I can say.

For you husbands out there who haven't any idea when you met your wife, I guess you're out of luck. (But I'm sure you can figure some way to make up for it...) For you single guys looking forward to matrimony, you might want to plan ahead so you have this option. I won't pretend to speak for all womanhood, but for myself I find the establishment of this tradition one of the nicest things anybody's ever done for me. No question.

Weekly sketching assignments

I was the sort of kid who sketched, and sketched, and sketched. So I'm glad to see that The Heart of Harmony hosts Sketch Tuesdays. Each week there's a different assignment (such as: a mug, butterflies, something made of wood, a computer part...). It's long on children's art, but in the posts it says the project is open to young and old.

hat tip: the sidebar at Dewey's Treehouse

An anthropologist looks at American values

The Aristocratic Reign Of Group Preferences by Peter Wood (Minding the Campus, January 25, 2008) takes a look at why some people support policies that favor one group over another, and why some of them have such trouble seeing the consequences of what they do. He notes that there are different sorts of advocates, pushing preferences for different reasons. He also addresses how America is different from most of the rest of the world, and why it runs counter to core American values - and liberal ones - to support group preferences.

Tales from hospitals with problems

Russell Roberts looks at what happens when everyone's a specialist and no one's in charge.

Melanie Phillips takes on a system that doesn't take elementary dignity into account.

Fizz instead of steam

Did you know that there are cold water geysers? Unity of Truth has a video. Follow the link beneath the video to see what powers this type of geyser. (I've given you a hint in my post title.)

Politics, faith, and how we make decisions

I have no doubt, none, that media old and new will happily spotlight and feed hysterical, uninformed, ultrapartisans during the rest of this presidential campaign. I have no doubt that said crazies will be held up as somehow representative of the "religious right" or "Christian conservatives" or whatever 'group' the pundit or reporter would like to make look silly, hysterical, uninformed, unintelligent and not safe to trust with the power of government.

So, in some sense, there isn't a lot I can see us quieter conservatives being able to do on a big scale. Crazies who love the spotlight will always be available. The media types will undoubtedly be all too happy to help them be counterproductive.

Having said that, I think it might help if those of you who are leaning toward feeling frantic yourself would think about the points The Anchoress makes in "Faith-based and hand-wringing,":

Today I’m wondering how it can be that the “faith-based” party — full of people who presumably have prayer lives - is in such a sorry frenzy. “Frenzy” should not be a word that applies to believers. Nor should “fear.”

[...snip...]

There’s no crying in baseball and there’s no hyperventilating fear in Christianity.

[...snip...]

Let me be very clear, so I don’t get 1000 emails again: This is not about McCain. This is not about Romney. It’s about how we come to our decisions. It goes hand-in-hand with my post from yesterday, where I asked if our political parties had become our idols. And it’s about our souls.

Full post here.

Now, The Anchoress hangs out with political junkies, and I've sort of dropped off that bandwagon. I'm spending more time socializing with people who are too busy taking care of their families and neighbors to obsess over matters of government, so from where I sit the world isn't crawling with despairing, screaming, weeping voters like it is in Newsland and Opinionstan. But I think she's got some good points, especially for those of you getting the vapors about the Republican race. Take a deep breath people.

Book business notes

The traditional book is facing competition. With that in mind, JollyBlogger asks Is Print Dead?. In that post, he links to Why Traditional Books Will Eventually Die (From Where I Sit, November 20, 2007), by Michael S. Hyatt, President and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing. (ed. note: corrected date)

Elsewhere, novelist Rebeca Seitz, who is also president of Glass Road Public Relations, is interviewed at Novel Journey about the world of book publicity. (Previous related post: Creating demand in the book market, Suitable For Mixed Company, Feb. 1, 2008)

Update: Add this to the mix: Online Book Sales Booming (People of the Book, January 29, 2008). That's around the globe, especially in 'developing nations.'

Lincoln's Cottage

See Lincoln Slept Here by Andrew Ferguson (Weekly Standard, Feb. 4, 2008) for a look inside Abraham Lincoln's home away from home during Washington's hot and smelly summers. Mr. Ferguson reports that the National Trust for Historic Preservation has been restoring the cottage. It will be open to visitors starting February 19.

March for Life 2008 slide show

Barbara Curtis has a dynamite slide show of this year's March for Life in Washington, D.C.

Just look at all those wonderful teens and twenty-somethings! Does the pro-life movement draw the cream of the crop, or what? Look at their faces. Do these kids have their act together or what?

A very frank Frankenstein character study

Did you like Frankenstein? Julie D. has a few problems with the character. (Spoiler alert.) I'm with Julie on this one. Except for the proposed violence, of course.

FYI: I suspect what she's referring to at the end of her post is related to the "Creationism Bragging Rights" and "Giant step toward artificial life" links in this post.

Here's a nonpartisan political joke...

... that might be a teeny bit funnier if there wasn't so much truth in it.

Laugh and learn.

Nanny economies: two takes

neo-neocon » French sales: la difference explains why French retail stores have sales only twice a year.

Mark Steyn addresses the question: Is Canada's Economy a Model for America? (Imprimis, January 2008, abridged from a lecture delivered on the Hillsdale College campus on September 29, 2007, at the second annual Free Market Forum, sponsored by the College’s Center for the Study of Monetary Systems and Free Enterprise.) Fair warning: includes content not appropriate for children.

From the suitable for mixed company parts, reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College, some excerpts:

...a once manly nation has undergone a remarkable psychological makeover. If you go back to 1945, the Royal Canadian Navy had the world’s third largest surface fleet, the Royal Canadian Air Force was one of the world’s most effective air forces, and Canadian troops got the toughest beach on D-Day. But in the space of two generations, a bunch of tough hombres were transformed into a thoroughly feminized culture that prioritizes all the secondary impulses of society—welfare entitlements from cradle to grave—over all the primary ones. And in that, Canada is obviously not alone. If the O’Sullivan thesis is flawed, it’s only because the lumberjack song could stand as the post-war history of almost the entire developed world.

Today, the political platforms of at least one party in the United States and pretty much every party in the rest of the Western world are nearly exclusively about those secondary impulses—government health care, government day care, government this, government that. And if you have government health care, you not only annex a huge chunk of the economy, you also destroy a huge chunk of individual liberty. You fundamentally change the relationship between the citizen and the state into something closer to that of junkie and pusher, and you make it very difficult ever to change back. Americans don’t always appreciate how far gone down this path the rest of the developed world is. In Canadian and Continental cabinets, the defense ministry is now a place where an ambitious politician passes through on his way up to important jobs like running the health department. And if you listen to recent Democratic presidential debates, it is clear that American attitudes toward economic liberty are being Canadianized.

To some extent, these differences between the two countries were present at their creations. America’s Founders wrote of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The equivalent phrase at Canada’s founding was “peace, order and good government” —which words are not only drier and desiccated and stir the blood less, but they also presume a degree of statist torpor. Ronald Reagan famously said, “We are a nation that has a government, not the other way around.” In Canada it too often seems the other way around.

[...snip...]

In the province of Quebec, it’s taken more or less for granted by all political parties that collective rights outweigh individual rights. For example, if you own a store in Montreal, the French language signs inside the store are required by law to be at least twice the size of the English signs. And the government has a fairly large bureaucratic agency whose job it is to go around measuring signs and prosecuting offenders. There was even a famous case a few years ago of a pet store owner who was targeted by the Office De La Langue Française for selling English-speaking parrots. The language commissar had gone into the store and heard a bird saying, “Who’s a pretty boy, then?” and decided to take action. I keep trying to find out what happened to the parrot. Presumably it was sent to a re-education camp and emerged years later with a glassy stare saying in a monotone voice, “Qui est un joli garcon, hein?”

The point to remember about this is that it is consonant with the broader Canadian disposition. A couple of years ago it emerged that a few Quebec hospitals in the eastern townships along the Vermont border were, as a courtesy to their English-speaking patients, putting up handwritten pieces of paper in the corridor saying “Emergency Room This Way” or “Obstetrics Department Second on the Left.” But in Quebec, you’re only permitted to offer health care services in English if the English population in your town reaches a certain percentage. So these signs were deemed illegal and had to be taken down. I got a lot of mail from Canadians who were upset about this, and I responded that if you accept that the government has a right to make itself the monopoly provider of health care, it surely has the right to decide the language in which it’s prepared to provide that care. So my point isn’t just about Quebec separatism. It’s about a fundamentally different way of looking at the role of the state.

[...snip...]

I drive a lot between Quebec and New Hampshire, and you don’t really need a border post to tell you when you’ve crossed from one country into another. On one side the hourly update on the radio news lets you know that Canada’s postal workers are thinking about their traditional pre-Christmas strike—the Canadians have gotten used to getting their Christmas cards around Good Friday, and it’s part of the holiday tradition now—or that employees of the government liquor store are on strike, nurses are on strike, police are on strike, etc. Whereas you could listen for years to a New Hampshire radio station and never hear the word “strike” except for baseball play-by-play.

In a news item from last year, an Ottawa panhandler said that he may have to abandon his prime panhandling real estate on a downtown street corner because he is being shaken down by officials from the panhandlers union. Think about that. There’s a panhandlers union which exists to protect workers’ rights or—in this case—non-workers’ rights. If the union-negotiated non-work contracts aren’t honored, the unionized panhandlers will presumably walk off the job and stand around on the sidewalk. No, wait...they’ll walk off the sidewalk! Anyway, that’s Canada: Without a Thatcher or a Reagan, it remains over-unionized and with a bloated public sector.

[...snip...]

The third difference is that Canada’s economy is more subsidized. Almost every activity amounts to taking government money in some form or other. I was at the Summit of the Americas held in Canada in the summer of 2001, with President Bush and the presidents and prime ministers from Latin America and the Caribbean. And, naturally, it attracted the usual anti-globalization anarchists who wandered through town lobbing bricks at any McDonald’s or Nike outlet that hadn’t taken the precaution of boarding up its windows. At one point I was standing inside the perimeter fence sniffing tear gas and enjoying the mob chanting against the government from the other side of the wire, when a riot cop suddenly grabbed me and yanked me backwards, and a nanosecond later a chunk of concrete landed precisely where I had been standing. I bleated the usual “Oh my God, I could have been killed” for a few minutes and then I went to have a café au lait. And while reading the paper over my coffee, I learned that not only had Canadian colleges given their students time off to come to the Summit to riot, but that the Canadian government had given them $300,000 to pay for their travel and expenses. It was a government-funded anti-government riot! At that point I started bleating “Oh my God, I could have been killed at taxpayer expense.” Say what you like about the American trust-fund babies who had swarmed in to demonstrate from Boston and New York, but at least they were there on their own dime. Canada will and does subsidize anything.

[...snip...]

Yet, having criticized Canada’s economy in various features, let me say something good about it: It doesn’t have the insanely wasteful federal agricultural subsidies that America has. In fact, if a Canadian wants to get big-time agriculture subsidies, he’s more likely to get them from the U.S. government. I’m sure most people here know that very few actual farmers—that’s to say, guys in denim overalls and plaid shirts and John Deere caps with straws in the stumps of their teeth—get any benefit from U.S. agricultural subsidies. Almost three-quarters of these subsidies go to 20,000 multi-millionaire play farmers and blue chip corporations. Farm subsidies are supposed to help the farm belt. But there’s a map of where the farm subsidies go that you can find on the Internet. And judging from the beneficiaries, the farm belt runs from Park Avenue down Wall Street, out to the Hamptons, and then by yacht over to Martha’s Vineyard, which they really ought to rename Martha’s Barnyard. Among the farmers piling up the dollar bills under the mattress are Ted Turner, Sam Donaldson, the oil company Chevron, and that dirt-poor, hardscrabble sharecropper David Rockefeller. But what you may not know is that also among their number is Edgar Bronfman, Sr., who isn’t just any old billionaire, he’s the patriarch of Montreal’s wealthiest family, owner of Seagram’s Whiskey, which subsequently bought Universal Pictures. So the U.S. taxpayer, in his boundless generosity, is subsidizing the small family farms of Canadian billionaires. As a Canadian and a broken-down New Hampshire tree farmer myself, I wondered whether I could get in on the U.S. farm program, but as I understand it, it would only pay me for a helicopter pad on top of my barn and a marble bathroom in my grain silo.

Edgar Bronfman’s dependence on U.S. taxpayers is symbolic of more than just the stupidity of federal agriculture subsidies. In the end, there’s no such thing as an independent Canadian economy. It remains a branch plant for the U.S. Over 80 percent of Canadian exports come to America. From time to time, nationalist politicians pledge to change that and start shipping goods elsewhere. But they never do because they don’t have to—they’ve got the world’s greatest market right next door. So when people talk about the Canadian model as something that should be emulated, they forget that it only works because it’s next to the American model. The guy who invented the Blackberry email device is Canadian, but it’s not been a gold mine for him because he’s selling a lot of them in Labrador or Prince Edward Island. It’s been a gold mine because he’s selling a lot of them in New York and California and in between.

Canadian dependence on the United States is particularly true in health care, the most eminent Canadian idea looming in the American context. That is, public health care in Canada depends on private health care in the U.S. ...

Read the whole thing (if a new front page has appeared, search the archives for January 2008).

Also available as a printable PDF file.

How to handle disappointment

BooMama gets bad news but...

The world's longest ships

A friend was telling us about the Emma Mærsk (aka Emma Maersk, aka SS Santa, aka USS Wal-Mart, the last being the name she was using for it, quite erroneously, but all in fun). This ship is so big it boggles the mind. At least it boggles my mind. And the normal crew is only 13?

For comparison, I pulled up a List of world's longest ships at Wikipedia. Yinga. Have I done my math right? Emma Mærsk is 210 feet longer than a Nimitz class aircraft carrier?

Groundhog Day, the shrinklet

I am beginning to feel like the last person on Earth who hasn't seen the movie Groundhog Day. I've seen snippets of it now and then on television, but I haven't watched the whole movie.

Karen Edmisten has, and summarizes it in rhyme.

She makes it sound like a movie I'd like to see.

Terrariums

Oh, oh. I haven't had a terrarium in a long time. After reading simplesparrow: gardens in a glass, I feel an itch to make one. I haven't a clue where I'd put it, but I want one anyway.

I know. I know. I'm supposedly getting rid of clutter and other stuff right now. Terrariums, I submit, are not stuff. :)

OK, they are stuff. But they're neat stuff.

hat tip: found after freewheeling linkhopping that started at Charming the Birds from the Trees.

The Saturday Review of Books...

...is up and growing at Semicolon.

Mormons mourn, remember, church leader

Mormons are dealing with the death of LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, who died last Sunday at the age of 97. He was buried today.

Bob Mims of the Salt Lake Tribune gives us Farewell to LDS prophet: Hinckley eulogized as humble, compassionate 'giant among men'. There are links and links in the sidebar, covering a wide range of related topics, some particular to Hinckley, and others more general, like What happens when an LDS president dies? (Salt Lake Tribune, Jan. 28, 2008.)

So, the AP 'rises to the occasion' with this from Eric Gorsky: Retention Key For Mormon Church (Feb. 2, 2008). Is it just me, or does Mr. Gorsky seem to have a problem with his subject matter? And does he despise people he sees as too square or healthy? (Side note: Is the AP somewhat short on religion reporters who think religion is a good thing? Sometimes I wonder.)

I'm not Mormon, but I am Mormon friendly. You'll need to remember that if you want to leave a comment here.

FYI: Orson Scott Card, who posts thoughtful essays here (World Watch archives here), sometimes takes on the role of apologist for the Mormon faith, as he does here.

Amazon buying Audible

Amazon is paying $300 million to buy Audible, the largest online seller of audiobooks. Brad Stone reports on the deal and what changes it might bring to the audiobook market, at Amazon agrees to buy online audiobook seller (International Herald Tribune, Feb. 1, 2008).

hat tip: wikio

Creating demand in the book market

From Why Does It Still Take So Long to Publish a Book? - New York Times, by Rachel Donadio:

Technology may be speeding up the news cycle, but in publishing, things actually seem to be slowing down. Although publishers can turn an electronic file into a printed book in a matter of weeks — as they often do for hot political titles, name-brand authors or embargoed celebrity biographies likely to be leaked to the press — they usually take a year before releasing a book. Why so long? In a word, marketing.

[...snip...]

As soon as a literary agent has sold a publisher a book, and even before it’s edited, copy-edited, proofread and indexed, the publicity wheels start turning. While writers bite their nails, the book editor tries to persuade the in-house sales representatives to get excited about the book, the sales representatives try to persuade retail buyers to get excited, and the retail buyers decide how many copies to buy and whether to feature the book in a prominent front-of-the-store display, for which publishers pay dearly. In the meantime, the publisher’s publicity department tries to persuade magazine editors and television producers to feature the book or its author around the publication date, often giving elaborate lunches and parties months in advance to drum up interest.

Read the whole article

Now, as far as I can see, that article applies primarily to certain big name publishers and big name retailers, playing their long-established games. Bully for them, especially if they're publishing something I can sell in my little bookstore. (We have standards they sometimes don't meet, even though we're not as picky as perhaps we ought to be.)

But they're only a segment of the publishing world. They're a significant factor, sure. But if selling books has taught us anything, it's that the big publishers' obsession with creating fads, and replacing them quickly with new fads, isn't what a lot of consumers want.

Good backlist books, midlist books, small press books, niche books, regional-interest books, even self-published books, can do surprisingly well if they're kept in print, and are easily obtained. Novelty sells. But so does something that somebody stumbles across. Or backlist of an author a customer has recently discovered, perhaps years after the publisher has whipped up buzz and then abandoned the titles and the author. I won't be surprised if more big book houses learn to keep more books in their catalogs, long after the talk shows no longer care. We'll see.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but when I read the New York Times piece linked above, the thought that popped to mind was "Me thinks they do protest too much." (However that's supposed to go. Thinks? Thinketh? Protest? Protesteth? I never can remember...) If they want to keep giving elaborate parties, that's their business, of course. But I have to wonder if they're trying just a bit too hard to convince the rest of us that a high-flying style of promotion is necessary, in a day and age in which authors can self-publish, and self-promote, without ever even leaving their home, not to mention that this is a day and age when talk shows and magazines have more competition than ever, and perhaps can't quite drive the popular culture as much as they used to? It's not like the old days, when there were three networks, and no podcasts or bloggers, etc. Is it?

Am I calling big publishers and their marketing departments dinosaurs? Oh, my, no. Think Harry Potter. Think how people lined up to get into stores at midnight. Think how crazy some folks got waiting for the release date, book after book. Think how much people enjoyed the countdown.

Marketing can be powerful. No question. But word of mouth can spread a lot of different ways, and it can and does sell a lot of books ignored by the talk shows and magazines and newspapers. If I were one of those hotshots who is used to being wined and dined, I think I'd be keeping one eye out for signs that the gig was wearing thin. I wouldn't necessarily be sweating, because people who like to live high aren't likely go frugal without a fight. But I would be keeping one eye out.

Longer words for better communication

Lars Walker proposes that we improve the language by making up useful compounds. As an example:

Instead of “progressive,” we could say, “happytospendotherpeople’smoney.”

That, of course, leaves out their drivingdesiretolegislateusintoparalysisanddependency. But I quibble.

I can see where this could get out of hand.

New rules at the borders

Rules changed this week for people crossing the United States borders with Canada and Mexico. Next year, even more stringent rules go into effect. NPR has a look at the changes. It also recently ran a story about a Vermont town where the border goes through town.

See also Important Change in International Land and Sea Travel Document Procedures, Press Release, January 31, 2008, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Beyond recipes

Do you buy ingredients to match recipes, or do you cook more like this: Treasures Up My Sleeve -- Potatoes?

hat tip: The Common Room

Woman gives mouth to mouth resuscitation to tiger cub

A visitor to a German zoo is credited with saving a tiger cub by giving it heart massage and mouth to mouth resuscitation. No, really. The grateful zoo decided to name the cub after good samaritan Janine Bauer's son Johann.

Bauer, a medical student, noticed the cub choking, and then collapsing. She ran to a zookeeper and offered to help. The keeper locked up the mother tiger, and Bauer set to work doing first aid on the 4-month-old cub. Unluckily for Bauer, the cub wouldn't revive without mouth-to-jaw resuscitation. Luckily for the cub, she didn't flinch.

Men's brains compared to women's brains

I'm not entirely sure it ought to be funny, and I'm not even sure all of it is entirely true, but all the same this reduced me to helpless laughter: Mommy Life: Men's brains, women's brains - very funny.

I would like you to notice that the audience in the video is composed primarily of couples, and that they seem to be happily married couples. You will notice how comfortable most of them are with each other, and how they share their laughter, won't you? Thank you. I wouldn't want this to be a source of animosity between the sexes. After all, our ability to take different approaches to any given situation is one of those things that makes a devoted husband-wife team such a force to be reckoned with. And the ability to laugh at our differences is one of those things that makes a good marriage so fun.

The video is just over five minutes long.

Knowing why and when and where to flee

Via Wittingshire, you can take a quiz about the last day of Pompeii: Would You Survive?

I was (according to the quiz) one of the theoretical survivors. Let's not go into how much of that was by dumb luck and wild guesses, shall we?

Why good people do evil things (like kill babies)

As some of you know, I used to be pro-choice, but now am pro-life. The blogger "Et tu?" also used to be pro-choice, and is now pro-life. Don't miss her post on what made her change her mind, and how hard it was to make the changeover. She brings some good insight to the discussion, I think. (And also some history.)

The Rebelution's Keep Moving Forward series/ Book note: Do Hard Things

The Rebelution challenges teens to not give in to low expectations. Check out, for instance, Keep Moving Forward: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four. Even if you aren't a teen.

From Part One:

Most of us, however, are not so passionate, tending to get comfortable just living life and getting by — neither giving our current activities the energy they deserve nor dreaming of anything better than what we already have. We stop exerting ourselves and get comfortable halfway up the ladder. Or, to use a different analogy, it is as if we are sitting on a stepping-stone in the middle of a stream. We’re comfortable, yes, but we were never intended to get cozy on a stepping-stone. Our ultimate goal is to cross over to the other side.

From Part Four:

...our hope is that you would learn to throw yourselves 100% into the small things God has in front of you, but to not get so comfortable there that you miss the next thing, the bigger, better opportunities He brings your way when you keep your eyes open for them. We want you to be like someone who has been faithfully exercising, but is constantly looking for opportunities to use the strength that he or she has developed to serve others in a productive, real world situation.

One of our mother’s favorite sayings is the line, “Hustle while you wait.” She might tell us that after dinner when we are all sitting around waiting for dessert but the table hadn’t been cleared. She would get the dessert all served out but often wouldn’t bring it to the table until everything was completely cleared. ‘Hustle while you wait’ meant that something good we wanted depended on our quick and cheerful execution of a task immediately in front of us.

Not familiar with The Rebelution? From the official book description of Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations, due out April 15, 2008:

The next generation stands on the brink of a "rebelution."

With over 14 million hits to their website TheRebelution.com, Alex and Brett Harris are leading the charge in a growing movement of Christian young people who are rebelling against the low expectations of their culture by choosing to "do hard things" for the glory of God.

Written when they were 18 years old, Do Hard Things is the Harris twins' revolutionary message in its purest and most compelling form, giving readers a tangible glimpse of what is possible for teens who actively resist cultural lies that limit their potential.

Combating the idea of adolescence as a vacation from responsibility, the authors weave together biblical insights, history, and modern examples to redefine the teen years as the launching pad of life and map a clear trajectory for long-term fulfillment and eternal impact.

Written by teens for teens, Do Hard Things is packed with humorous personal anecdotes, practical examples, and stories of real-life rebelutionaries in action. This rallying cry from the heart of revolution already in progress challenges the next generation to lay claim to a brighter future, starting today.

Go ahead. Do a dance step or two, or stand up and cheer. I understand. Really, I do. (And nothing would make me happier than to see this book become a New York Times bestseller. Heh.)

Browsing through the links

I'm spending some time this week going through my links list, visiting sites I haven't been to in a long time. I've found a few places that have changed a name and/or a site, or gone out of business (I've removed those). And can Nathaniel be turning two already? Where does the time go? Wasn't it just a few months ago he was fighting for his newborn life?

At Cheat-Seeking Missiles, I found a couple of interesting posts right at the top. Fade-Out On The Campaign TV Spot looks at changes in how national political campaigns are run, now that television ads are so expensive, and now that there are more (and better) alternatives. Creationism Bragging Rights takes a mostly-humorous look at recent claims about machine-made life. He says what the scientists are really claiming (when you cut through the hype and spin) isn't that they're on the verge of creating life. As he puts it, they're talking about hijacking it. There's a difference.

When you get through laughing at Laer's punchline, though, please go read the article that prompted his post: Giant step toward artificial life, by Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical writer, San Francisco Chronicle, January 25, 2008. Except for the rather unfortunate "there is the matter of bragging rights of mythological proportions. Mere mortals have yet to lay claim to creating life" segment, it's really an interesting, informative, and rather well-balanced article, I thought. And it does give space to concerns about what's going on.

Update: Sallie is leading a discussion on Jane Austen movies. She also has a long and thoughtful, very good post in which she revisits a post from May of 2005 on deciding what's important, and acting on it. I'm in a simplify-and-cut-back phase right now, and appreciated the inspiration.

Update: Patrick Deneen takes a look at "the breakdown of a covenant of respect and honor," and "the growing evidence of shamelessness among our middling debtor class."

On the Democratic contenders

Anthony Esolen notes:

Truth to tell, I'm cheered by Barack Obama's victory over Mrs. Clinton. So are a lot of people who call themselves conservatives, and that demands some explanation, given that on social issues, on taxes, and on immigration, Mr. Obama's positions are impossible to separate from Mrs. Clinton's. What is going on here?

Read the rest.

This year I can't see myself voting for either Democrat, but I find Esolen's comments interesting. I'm not sure he has any grounds for his admittedly slim hopes that Obama might help return the Democratic Party to stances, values, and focus more in line with its worthier days, but here's hoping he's right. Certainly I can't see the Clintons doing it.

Fooled by randomness

I like lessons that leave me with a useful mental picture, or a humorous way of reminding myself to watch out for common mistakes. I'd say this fits the bill nicely.

From Cafe Hayek: Snapping his fingers (a post mainly addressing the stimulus package):

There once was a man on a Manhattan street corner snapping his fingers over and over again. What are you doing, someone asked. Keeping away tigers, he said. You don't think that really works, do you? It's working so far, he answered.

Hah. There you go, I said to myself, when I read that. I spend a fair amount of time looking at things and wondering if something has really helped, or if it was coincidence, or what. Now I can look at a situation and ask myself if it's real, or finger snapping to keep away tigers. Heh.

Russell Roberts filed that post under Fooled by Randomness. Fooled by randomness? Uffda. Been there. Done that. Expect it will happen again despite my best intentions. Ahem.

Quotes

To know who said this (and when):

"Do not let us be hair splitters. Let us not ask ourselves whether the Americas should begin to defend themselves after the first attack, or the fifth attack, or the tenth attack, or the twentieth attack. The time for active defense is now."

And this (and when):

"...if you treat the Americans well they will always want to treat you better."

And this (and when):

"I prefer to collaborate with my allies rather than with my enemies."

...pop over to Expat Yank and check out the sidebar.

(A hint: one is by Winston Churchill.)

I'm from the government and I'm here to help (raise your kids)

This post is going to haunt me for a while, I think. I've tried for a couple of days to come up with useful commentary, but, well, I need to think about this a while longer, I guess.

Margaret Truman Daniel, dead at 83

The multi-talented Margaret Truman Daniel has died at age 83 after a short illness. I have mixed feelings about many of her books (see my rambling thoughts on her remarkable biography of her mother, for instance), but there's no denying her intelligence, talent, skills, insider's insight, and spirit. My condolences to her family.

Simplify

Phil at Brandywine Books shares some advice borrowed from Paul Borthwick's book Simplify: 106 Ways to Uncomplicate Your Life.

Tim Challies on his first book

In Reflections from a First Time Author, well-known evangelical blogger Tim Challies discusses book writing, and publishing today. (Via Albert Mohler's review of Challies's book, The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment.)

Give this man a Daddy Award

Daddyhood, in four minutes of music.

Welcome to the era of sailing ships

Sort of.

Side note: I think the currently-fashionable panic about CO2 is offbase, and based more on vogue than science. But I do like the projected savings in operating expenses. And I like that this new technology saves fuel. (When the wind cooperates, of course.)

hat tip: Expat Yank

Terrorism by any other name...

The UK government has decided to rename Islamic terrorism, designating it henceforth as "Anti-Islamic Activity"?

Mark Steyn considers this and other recent actions as excessive deference to Islam (not to mention Orwellian, not to mention self-defeating). His argument here: First They Came for Piglet (National Review Online, January 26, 2006).

The Saturday Review of Books...

...is up at Semicolon. Link a review of your own and/or read reviews written by other bloggers.

Changing attitudes about abortion

In Have your views on abortion changed? (Mommy Life, January 21, 2008), Barbara Curtis writes:

As someone who was in on the early days of abortion - and had one myself - I can say that never in our wildest dreams did we think that abortion would become a form of birth control ending up in 1.5 million deaths per year and wiping out 1/4 of the next generation. Why aren't feminists worried about the message that sends about women and children - that our lives and decisions are worth so little?

[...snip...]

What I'd really like to take to the Blogs 4 Life conference is a message of reality and hope. How are blogs affecting the way readers perceive abortion and other life-related issues? How has the Internet/how have blogs changed the way you think about abortion?

I'm asking because some of my readers have shared that they have been led by stuff they've read here to question their preconceived notions about abortion. Many were unaware of the number of babies aborted. Some had never considered the psychological implications for a generation growing up knowing that their parents had the power of life and death over them. Many are awakening to the fact that the Boomer Generation in its selfishness has created a huge societal problem as it grows to demand longer and better living - with Social Security benefits paid for by a population base shrunken - not by pestilence, famine or flood, but by their own hands.

Read the rest

Canada's cheap lives

January 28 marks the 20th anniversary of R. vs. Morgentaler, which struck down abortion laws in Canada. This week, National Post writers will be looking at the legacy of the ruling. In the first installment, The Day Humanity Became Cheap, "David Frum argues that the decision served to cheapen the value of human life."

hat tip: The Black Kettle

Welcome to the Wild West

On our sidewalk, deer tracks overlap boot prints, and cat tracks...

We never have figured out who scraped the sidewalk for us right before this latest dusting of snow. I was changing into work clothes to head out to clear off the few inches of snow that had built up, when someone with a motorized scraper drove up onto the sidewalk and did the job for us, and then drove off without so much as saying howdy. Whoever you are, thanks.

Historic Sunday School Books online

From American Memory (The Library of Congress), "Sunday School Books: Shaping the Values of Youth in Nineteenth-Century America":

This collection presents 163 Sunday school books published in America between 1815 and 1865, drawn from the collections of Michigan State University Libraries and the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University Libraries. They document the culture of religious instruction of youth in America during the Antebellum era. They also illustrate a number of thematic divisions that preoccupied nineteenth-century America, including sacred and secular, natural and divine, civilized and savage, rural and industrial, adult and child. Among the topics featured are history, holidays, slavery, African Americans, Native Americans, travel and missionary accounts, death and dying, poverty, temperance, immigrants, and advice.

The home page for the collection at Michigan State University is here.

The people who "happen to be there"

I like this C. S. Lewis quote.

Photos of Lincoln's Second Inaugural found

Photographs parading under mislabels have now been determined to be from President Abraham Lincoln's second inauguration.

By the way, have you ever read the speech he gave that day? Not just the most famous bit...

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

... which is the end of it, but the whole Second Inaugural Address?

Baptist church gains in Vietnam

From "Vietnam church gains legal status, leads national outreach," (Baptist Press, Jan. 17, 2008):

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (BP)--Vietnamese Baptists met at Grace Baptist Church in Ho Chi Minh City Jan. 10-11 to celebrate the church's receiving official government recognition and to organize a new national confederation. This historic development is expected to encourage future evangelism and church-planting efforts in the country.

The Vietnamese government made this possible by granting a certificate of religious practice to the church. The 400-member group met to create Grace Baptist Southern General Confederation. It adopted a constitution and elected officers for the new organization, which will organize and represent new churches across Vietnam.

[...snip...]

The church sits alongside the main airport road in downtown Ho Chi Minh City. Formerly called Saigon, the city was renamed in the 1970s at the end of the war... The church is completing an expansion of its building, prompted by a road-widening project. A new multi-story building is fronted with a dramatic spiral staircase and topped with a cross.

Grace Baptist Church is an outgrowth of Southern Baptist missionary work that began in Vietnam in the late 1950s. Missionaries left the country when the Vietnam War ended in 1975. Since then, the Vietnamese government has not allowed missionary presence.

But that foundational work continued to grow. Today, Baptists are widely acknowledged as the fastest-growing church group in Vietnam. There are now some 5,000 Baptists in 90 congregations in a dozen cities and provinces across the country. Only some of them are allied with Grace, church leaders said.

Read the article

Popephobia (and its countercurrent)

Perhaps you've heard that Pope Benedict XVI canceled a speech at a Rome university this week, because of threats from students and faculty?

Michael Ledeen taught at that university back in the 1970s. In a post at The Corner at NRO, he provides some background, and also notes that he's not the only Jewish intellectual speaking out in support of the Pope in the wake of the incident.

hat tip: Bookworm Room

Who owns your body?

As Melanie Phillips explains in Organs of Coercion, when a government feels it has a claim on your vital organs, it's not necessarily a good thing. (/understatement)

And no, this is not science fiction. It probably should be, but it isn't.

Can spring be far behind?

Our Seed Savers Exchange catalog arrived in the mail yesterday. I must say, seed catalogs do make winter more fun. (Not to mention spring, summer, and fall, if you're a gardener. :)

Never underestimate the power of inspired music

There's reportedly a Johann Sebastian Bach boom sweeping East Asia, with surprising results.

Considering freedom

Via Bookworm Room, Richard Disney showcases a 1948 cartoon which educates against "ISM." (That would be the snake oil -isms peddled by those utopians who promise great things in exchange for freedom.) The video is between nine and ten minutes long.

Over at the New York Times, Jeffrey Rosen provides a review of the new book Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment by Anthony Lewis.

If you didn't follow the link the other day in the Thermostat Policing post, I'd like to highlight the end of Don Boudreaux's Rampaging Regulators post:

I quote again the final lines of Thomas Sowell's greatest book: Knowledge and Decisions:

[Freedom] is, above all, the right of ordinary people to find elbow room for themselves and a refuge from the rampaging presumptions of their "betters."

The link inside the above quote takes you to a May 2004 Cafe Hayek post, which has the quote coupled with the sentence which leads into it:

Freedom is not simply the right of intellectuals to circulate their merchandise. It is, above all, the right of ordinary people to find elbow room for themselves and a refuge from the rampaging presumptions of their “betters.”

Hear! Hear!

BTW: Boudreaux has a follow up post to Rampaging Regulators.

Appearances versus reality

You would think that after the Dewey Defeats Truman embarrassment suffered by the Chicago Tribune (noted in this Wikipedia article on the United States presidential election of 1948), there wouldn't be a paper on Earth that would court making the same mistake. But no.

In a follow-up post, Robert shows that an attempt to explain why they goofed didn't help matters much, if at all.

Robert quotes his mother in the second post, and I think she might have a point that pollsters and pundits might want to keep in mind:

The media never understood that most women over 50 don’t go to political rallies. But they do vote. So while the Hannah Montanas were filling Obama’s rallies and the media loved that, when push came to shove their mothers and grandmothers turned out in bigger droves to vote not for the media’s rock idol, but for the mature lady: Hillary.

Friends, let's not get into commentary about how mature she is or isn't, please. Not here, at any rate. The point I think is a valid one. If you put too much stock in political rallies, you'll miss the voters who typically don't go to rallies, and that's most of us, at a guess.

Do you ever wonder if our news industry would be healthier if television had never been invented, or, more precisely, if somehow television news hadn't become obsessed with video footage? I don't know about you, but one of my peeves with many folks in television news is how often they run footage or put up a picture that doesn't go with a particular story, but apparently strikes them as similar enough to illustrate the piece.

OK, OK, so it's not just television. Back in my newspaper days, I was assigned to do a feature on birdwatching opportunities in the area. The news editor illustrated my piece on white pelicans with a photo of a brown pelican. He never could seem to figure out why I thought experienced birdwatchers (not to mention a sizable percentage of third graders, just for instance) might find that jarring, to put it politely. Argh, even. His contention was that "a pelican's a pelican." (Perhaps it's time to modify the saying about "Close enough for government work"?)

Men acknowleging their lost children

More and more men are calling themselves "post-abortive men," according to "We Had Abortions . . . . I've Had Abortions" -- A New Voice in the Abortion Debate at AlbertMohler.com.

Mohler's post has links to and excerpts from a January 7, 2008, article in The Los Angeles Times by Stephanie Simon, which ran under the title "Changing Abortion's Pronoun." (registration required).

Do you know Roe?

Here's a quiz on Roe v. Wade.

The sponsors are trying to gauge what the public thinks (or assumes) Roe v. Wade said and did, versus what the law does say and has done. So pop on over and take a few minutes. Results will be announced in eight days.

How did I do? I, ahem, needed the refresher course... Let's leave it at that, shall we? (One nice thing about this quiz is that after you finish, it gives you a chart showing not only what you got right and what you got wrong, but giving the correct answers. Run your mouse over the box to bring up whatever you want to read in more detail.)

January 22, 2008 marks the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

The value of trust

While parts of Africa are struggling to overcome "low trust" governance, are Western governments taking their "high trust" status for granted? Robert Tumminello discusses that and more in this post. (Which also somewhat alters how I think about The Sound of Music...)

Are young people in Britain...

...less free than any generation since the Middle Ages? Author George MacDonald Fraser asserted that in this excerpt from The Light's On At Signpost (excerpt published as "The last testament of Flashman's creator: How Britain has destroyed itself" in the Daily Mail, Jan. 5, 2008)

Mr. Fraser died Jan. 2 at the age of 82.

hat tip: Frank Wilson

Calls for unity...

...have two major problems, Dennis Prager notes.

Noted in passing in the same article:

Ironically, one reason America became the freest country in the world was thanks to its being founded by disunited Christians -- all those Protestant denominations had to figure out a way to live together and make a nation.

American History 101 does need to be dusted off from time to time, I guess...

hat tip: Bookworm Room

Blogging and bad neighborhoods

Rabbi Avi Shafran writes about basic Jewish values, and the dangers the blogosphere poses to them, in Blogistan (Jewish World Review, January 2, 2008)

Previous related post: The ethics of blogging

Thermostat policing

Heads up, Californians. According to Cafe Hayek: Rampaging Regulators, there are government officials in your state trying to make it mandatory for new or modified heating or air conditioning units to be remote controllable by government officials, so they can raise or lower your thermostat setting as they see fit, during "emergency events." You have until the end of January to file comments on the proposal.

C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien on marriage

In this article about what tithing is about, Jordan Ballor has this:

The focus on the good brought to ourselves in the act of tithing is one that corrupts the purpose of the giving itself. C. S. Lewis provides an analogy to the proper view of marriage that fits here. Lewis said that you don’t get married to become happy, but rather to make the other person happy. Your own happiness is a by-product, a consequence, of maintaining the proper end. If, by contrast, you get married simply in order to make yourself happy, your true happiness is made that much more unlikely.

In the same way, whatever benefits we claim to receive from tithing, whether spiritual, emotional, or financial, these are not to be the reason that we give...

Meanwhile, over at Wittingshire, there's Tolkien on Soul Mates, from a letter J.R.R. Tolkien wrote to his son Michael.

Another call for the best of blogging in 2007

Is there something you read on a blog last year that you'd like to put in the spotlight? Gina Dalfonzo wants to know about favorite blog posts of 2007.

What killed the dinosaurs?

I like Frank Wilson's commentary on this, by the way.

But if you follow the link in his post you'll read about a new book called What Bugged the Dinosaurs?: Insects, Disease, and Death in the Cretaceous, by George O. Poinar, Jr and Roberta Poinar.

Oregon State University press release on the authors and their theories here.

Added: Phil at Brandywine Books recommends a dinosaur book for kids, Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs: The Definitive Pop-Up. I list it here because he notes that he has problems with the section on why the dinosaurs died.

Frats for gentlemen

When I was in college, a coed who valued her reputation - not to mention her safety - generally steered clear of members of fraternities. Perhaps things are changing? At least in some places?

From NPR : From Togas to Yoga: Fraternities Try to Alter Image:

Sigma Phi Epsilon has taken on a new agenda, and it goes by the name of Balanced Man. The principles: leader, scholar, athlete and gentleman. There's a lot of talk about being gentlemen.

They have thrown out the defining first step of fraternity membership: pledging. That means freshmen like Chen don't have to scrape out the pumpkin seeds — or do unspeakable things with them. Chen says that if there were hazing and endless keggers, he never would have joined.

"I came to Georgetown. I'm paying $50,000 a year. I kind of want to accomplish something outside of, you know, having a good story to tell my grandkids about what not to do in college," he says.

Sigma Phi Epsilon isn't the only one trying the "classy frat guy" style. According to the North American Interfraternity Conference, half of its 350,000 undergraduates are in these "re-imagining the frat"-type programs. With names like Men of Principle and the True Brother Initiative, the programs prop up civility, scholarship and virtue.