It was bound to happen.  Several people I know already called it “Linens-N-Shit,” a well-known hot spot for people who were helpless to recognize that they needlessly wanted to buy things they didn’t actually need.    And now, The Onion has dedicated an entire article to the retailer.

Speaking of The Onion, check out the Onion Network News for reports that The Bejing Olympics are actually a huge trap and this extra funny report on new wearable feedbags for Americans and this even funnier report on the limits of what humans are willing to eat. I suspect that there were some product placement fees involved in these last two reports, but I can’t be sure . . .

After being on-the-lookout for six months, I actually found some caps with no logos at a local Walgreens.  It can really be a task to find ways to dress up without being a human billboard for a corporation.  This body is not for rent as advertising space!

As a person who likes to play guitar with my hands, I’m especially impressed with people who play guitar with their feet. Here’s another good foot-guitar player:

The chamber, flickering by massed candle light, is stuffy and just a bit noisy from all the shfting fabric and heavy breathing, muttered comments and borborigmi. The couple in the opulent bed seem annoyed, but they’re forcing themselves to play along and be jolly. He manages—he’s been through this before, of course—but she is having difficulty with the idea of being unclothed before an audience.

“We must do this quickly and have done,” says he, “then they will leave us to our bliss.”

She eyes him suspiciously, then nods curtly, hikes up what little she has around her hips, scoots down, and spreads her legs.

Ponderously, he rolls atop her.

A minister, a member of Parliament, two servants, and a Duke move closer to observe.

“A little to your left, Highness,” says the Duke.

Everything slides home. The woman winces visibly (it doesn’t really hurt, but there is the expectation of virgin ritual to fulfill).

“It is done,” the minister says, whereupon the Master of the Chamber begins shooing everyone out of the room to leave the newlyweds alone.

Macabre? Loosely, we’ve just witnessed the wedding night of Henry the VIII and…well, one of the six. It was a State Affair, the First Time, and required witnesses. The realm must be assured that the king’s thing shot home into the queen’s vagina. All is well, the security of the state is assured.

This obsession with where penises go—or whether they go somewhere at all—has, you may rightly agree, no place in a democracy where the provenance of royal spoor has no bearing on state matters (unless one is unfortunate enough to stain a dress with it). In Henry’s day, however, the royals had far less privacy in the matter than the commoners. You would think we’d have learned by now that, really, where what part fits when and with whom is totally irrelevant to anything, well, National…

Not so. California has legalized Gay Marriage and some of its citizens are Up In Arms about it. So much so that they are trying to enact an amendment to ban it. Of course, they’re a bit embarrassed about it as they are now suing to remove the current wording from their Proposition 8, which is one of the more truthful and straightforward such ballots I’ve seen. It states currently that by voting for Proposition 8, the right to marry and be married will be removed from homosexuals—who currently enjoy that right in California. The proponents of Prop 8 call the wording “inflammatory” and want it changed. The problem is, that is exactly what Prop 8 will do.

So why the fuss? Well, they’re afraid such wording will cause people to reject it. It’s too rough, you see.

Personally, though, I think they are also just a bit embarrassed, because underlying this desire to strip gays of the right to marry is this same old pesky problem of where all those penises are going. We can’t crowd into the bedrooms of all these folks—especially since it looks like domestic surveillance might be curtailed again under the next president and Alberto Gonzales is no longer in the Justice Department to make sure our search for terrorists can also be used eventually to root out, you know, perverts—so the next best thing is to try to make sure what Those People are doing is in no way protected by law.

A stretch? Well, take a look at this from Osron Scott Card. I pick on this because Card is an excellent fiction writer who seems to have the ability to empathize (in his fiction) with those he does not agree with. In fact, a read of his novel Songmaster would lead one to expect a profound level of tolerance for alternative perspectives. And yet, compartmentally, he seems incapable of extending such tolerance to, well, reality.

But it is his claim that such legalization of gay marriage is a threat to democracy that I think is interesting. This is another in the long conservative argument over Legislation from the Bench—which they hate when liberals do it, but then they do it themselves all the time in the guise of Strict Constructionism. So this would be great for them—enact a constitutional amendment which would bypass legislative bodies and allow a conservative court to strike down majority mandates based on constitutional law that can be construed as Founding Intent.

It is such a tortuous road, though, for such a silly prejudice. Do people really concern themselves with what other people do with their parts? Does it matter where someone else’s penis goes as long as such use conforms to laws that apply to everyone (statutory rape, forcible rape, etc)?

Maybe it is does. I know it concerns me where mine goes. But I always thought that was a strictly private matter. Maybe I’m wrong.

I collect quotes (who doesn’t?). Really, it’s a good hobby. It’s cheap and often interesting. When they are really good quotes, it’s like a novel condensed to a mere sentence.

The first two of this set are about one of my favorite topics, rampant materialism. The others all relate closely to one another, but only if you have a wild imagination or if you think of a very broad topic like “meaning of life.” Without further ado:

Who is content with nothing possesses all things.
– Nicolas Boileau Despreaux

Wealth is the number of things one can do without.
– Feodor Dostoyevsky

The trouble is that you think you have time.
– Zen Master

Observe your enemies, for they first find out your faults.
– Antisthenes

A hole is nothing at all, but you can break your neck in it.
– Austin O’Malley

War is when the government tells you who the bad guy is. Revolution is when you decide that for yourself.
–Anonymous

Never mistake motion for action.
– Ernest Hemingway

(more…)

The July 11, 2008 edition of Science (available only to subscribers on line) includes an article entitled “Modernizing the Modern Synthesis,” by Elizabeth Pennisi, regarding a group of scientists who call themselves “The Altenberg 16.” They have gathered together to explore the need to revamp the modern synthesis. What is the “modern synthesis”? According to Wikipedia, the modern synthesis “bridged the gap between experimental geneticists and naturalists; and between both and palaeontologists, stating that”:

• All evolutionary phenomena can be explained in a way consistent with known genetic mechanisms and the observational evidence of naturalists.
• Evolution is gradual: small genetic changes, recombination ordered by natural selection. Discontinuities amongst species (or other taxa) are explained as originating gradually through geographical separation and extinction (not saltation).
• Selection is overwhelmingly the main mechanism of change; even slight advantages are important when continued. The object of selection is the phenotype in its surrounding environment. The role of genetic drift is equivocal; though strongly supported initially by Dobzhansky, it was downgraded later as results from ecological genetics were obtained.
• The primacy of population thinking: the genetic diversity carried in natural populations is a key factor in evolution. The strength of natural selection in the wild was greater than expected; the effect of ecological factors such as niche occupation and the significance of barriers to gene flow are all important.
• In palaeontology, the ability to explain historical observations by extrapolation from micro to macro-evolution is proposed. Historical contingency means explanations at different levels may exist. Gradualism does not mean constant rate of change.

According to “Modernizing the Modern Synthesis,” the modern synthesis thus holds that:

Organisms have a repertoire of traits that are passed down through the generations. Vacations in genes alter those traits bit by bit and if conditions are such that those alterations make an individual more fit, and the altered trade becomes more common over time. This process is called natural selection. In some cases, the new feature can replace an old one; in other instances, natural selection also leads to speciation.

The modern synthesis has guided biologists for the past 70 years. The obvious question, then is what has happened since then to necessitate any changes to the modern synthesis?

A lot has happened in the past half-century. DNA’s structure was revealed, genomes were sequenced, and developmental biologist turned their sights on evolutionary questions. Researchers have come to realize that heredity is not simply a matter of passing genes from parent to offspring, as the environment, chemical modification of DNA, and other factors come into play as well. Organisms vary not only in how they adapt to changing conditions but also in how they evolve.

One of the organizers of the group, evolutionary biologist Massimo Pigliucci stresses that the need for a reworking of the modern synthesis doesn’t mean that the overall theory of evolution is wrong (as “intelligent design” advocates will no doubt argue). Rather, the group is attempting to “better incorporate modern science and the data revealed by it.”

The Pennisi article serves as a succinct review of some of the new research that needs to be incorporated into evolutionary biology. Many of these developments “are nudging evolutionary biology away from a focus on population genetics-how the distribution of genes changes across groups of individuals-and toward an understanding of the molecular underpinnings of these changes.”

One of the basic ideas that needs to be incorporated is that DNA cannot do it all–biology is highly constrained by physics and this needs to be recognized. Evolutionary biologist Gunter Wagner explains that under the “old” modern synthesis, “the body plan is a historical residue of evolutionary time, the afterglow of the evolutionary process such that more closely related organisms share more features.” The “new” view is that body plans have internal inertia and evolution works around this stability.”

(more…)

It happened twice on MSNBC, triggered by John McCain’s latest tactic: an ad suggesting that Barack Obama was dissing the troops when it is clear that John McCain is dissing the troops through his legislative actions. As the commentator from Air America makes clear, there is a big difference between supporting veterans and being a veteran. McCain is banking on the American public not understanding the difference.  See the commentaries here at Huffpo.

Good for MSNBC.   Now it’s time for the rest of the media to quit giving McCain a free ride.

As far as a collection of some of the many lies by John McCain, consider this fast-growing set. And don’t forget McCain’s pro-torture actions that accompany his anti-torture rhetoric.

An interesting post at Huffpo. Citizens can perform a “citizen’s arrest” in some states. Beware that if you try to arrest Karl Rove, you could be arrested yourself.

There is yet another story going around about dinosaur and human footprints found together in ancient (maybe 4,000 years old!) rock. Here is the local credulous Texas take on the find.

All the previous pictures of contemporaneous dinosaur and human footprints provided by these people showed that humans used to have 19″ long feet with only 3 toes. This new isolated sample, long removed from its secret setting, is available to view in person by true believers. The dinosaur track might be real, but any anatomist or gait specialist could tell you what is wrong with the human footprint, and its intersection with that of the dinosaur. Any paleontologist want to comment on the dino-print?

If they really wanted actual paleontologists to believe the evidence, they would invite them to the site of the find to seek the rest of the footprint trail. As an attempt to gain credulity, they claim that over 800 x-rays were taken of the rock (one CAT scan?) after the human footprint was “revealed”. Um, I guess they need to prove that it is a rock through and through. Actually, the claim is that fossil footprints are made by compressing layers of rock, rather than in a soft single sediment layer where they are usually found. The scans reportedly show that both footprints distorted underlying layers.

The daughter of the discoverer has studied some geology, so she is skeptical of its evidentiary value as proof of a Young Earth. But Dr. Carl Baugh, the founder and director of the Creation Evidence Museum in Texas, hopes to get these pictures into Texas textbooks (and therefore all other states) under the Strengths and Weaknesses doctrine of the Discovery Institute.

MSNBC has recently reported on the prosperity gospel of Televangelist Kenneth Copeland, which appears to be benefiting mostly—Kenneth Copeland and his relatives.

Kenneth Copeland, 71, is a pioneer of the prosperity gospel, which teaches that believers are destined to flourish spiritually, physically and financially — and share the wealth with others.

His ministry’s 1,500-acre campus outside Fort Worth is testament to his success. It includes a church, private airstrip, a hangar for the ministry’s aircraft and a $6 million, church-owned mansion.

I shake my head when I read these corporate media reports about these upstart religions. That’s because many long-established religions also allow their leaders to live in wanton opulence. Consider, for instance, the Catholic Church (in which I was raised). When is the last time the Pope or any of the Cardinals or Bishops missed a meal because they couldn’t afford it? Although I know of frugal (and morally admirable) priests and nuns, I have yet to hear of any high-ranking Catholic clergyman who had to scrape by. If you doubt this, check out the opulent living quarters of your local Cardinal or Arch-Bishop.

It’s also pathetic to watch the mainstream media attacking newly-established religions for preaching the prosperity gospel. You can almost hear the sneering and snarling when the big media outlets report that preachers like Copeland (or, another example, Joel Osteen) teaches that there’s nothing wrong with being rich or enjoying a life of conspicuous consumption.

It’s a rare religion, though, that has ever ejected any member for being rich or for consuming conspicuously. It doesn’t matter that Edward or Susan or Walter has five vacation homes or a private jet or pays 27 times more to eat at fancy restaurants than most people pay for food. Here’s what being rich does for members of organized religions: they get more deference and more respect than lower earning members of the church. Never are they scolded from the pulpit. I beg you—if anyone reading this knows of any rich person being asked by any mainstream church to stop living so lavishly, let me know.  I assume that it occasionally happens in tiny or fringe sects, but not in Big Church USA.  For instance, do you think the Catholic Church has ever told any of the Kennedys that they should sell their lavish property at Martha’s Vineyard or that they should otherwise cut down on their conspicuous consumption? Their whirlwind vacations or their fancy cars or their fancy jewelry?  Churches are utterly obeisant to rich people.

Here’s the real-life gospel every Sunday: “No matter what we say up here, it’s OK for you to keep the vast majority of your money and to blow it on any luxury you care to dream up.”

Mainstream certainly preach the gospel that “Blessed are the poor,” but they actually push their members to act on it. I’ve yet to see it. Therefore, why does the mainstream media pounce on churches that allow its leaders and members to flaunt their wealth?  Jealousy?  Schadenfreude? For rich people (and for many poor), church is for Sundays only.

Most churches founded by organized religions are country clubs with steeples. They are happy to accept most anyone who walks into the door, especially if that person has some resources he or she might donate to the church. In return, wealthy members of mainstream churches have grown accustomed to a substantial return benefit. Never will a church leader suggest that those wealthy members need to actually change anything about their lifestyle unless it involves something about family planning or sex for pleasure.

It’s less likely that a mainstream church will scold a member for conspicuous consumption than it would be for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.

Several of my friends have recently purchased scooters. They are thrilled that they are now doing something good for the environment. They point to the 90 miles they will now get for each gallon of gasoline burned.

Despite the good gas mileage, not all scooters are good for the environment. Those thinking about purchasing a scooter should be aware that two-stroke engines contribute mightily to pollution. Not all scooters are two-stroke engines, but many of them are. The special Science, Technology and the Future issue of Discover magazine (Dated May, 2008, but not available online) indicates that throughout Asia, scooters with two-stroke engines are producing a vast amount of pollution.

How bad for the environment are two-stroke engine scooters?

Unlike the developed nations’ larger but much more efficient automobiles, which views four-stroke engines, two-stroke vehicles spew great volumes of dangerous hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and smoke. A single two-stroke engine produces pollution equivalent to that of 30 to 50 four-stroke automobiles. With roughly 100 million motorcycles in Asia–roughly half of them using two-stroke engines–that translates into as much as 2.5 billion cars’ worth of smog.

Two-stroke engines produce a lot of pollution because the fuel-air mixture in them gets contaminated with the engines lubricating oils. Simultaneously the combustion chamber draws in the contaminated mixture as exhaust gases are expelled through an exhaust port. Some of the fuel and oil gets mixed up with the exhaust.

Two-stroke engines show up in many other contexts too, including many machines used for yard work. For instance, most gas burning lawnmowers using two-stroke engines.  How much pollution do gas-powered lawn mowers cause?  Boulder and County News has some shocking answers:

Traditional gas-powered lawn mowers are responsible for 5 percent of the nation’s air pollution, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which recently created emission regulations for small engines like those that lawn mowers use. One gas mower running for an hour emits the same amount of pollutants as eight new cars driving 55 mph for the same amount of time, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

This is a good reason to consider using a push mower without a gasoline engine if you have a small to medium sized yard (here are more lawn mower stats from the EPA).  Today’s push mowers are much smaller and lighter than the push mowers used by your grandparents. It’s really a good option for a lot of reasons, including a reduction in both air pollution and noise pollution.

In case you’ve been out of touch, a student in Florida took Our Lord Jesus Christ hostage a few weeks ago. He walked out of church with a consecrated communion wafer to show to a friend, rather than promptly eating the true flesh of the 2000 year old man. Ignoring the question of whether Jesus really did say, “Eat Me”, this little event became big news. First, the college and the church denounced and eventually impeached the poor kid. Demands that he be expelled and/or excommunicated flew. (Orlando Sentinel summary article).

Then famous rationalist and biologist PZ Myers got into the act. He published a post in which he suggested that those incensed need to get a reality-based life: “It’s a frackin’ cracker” said he. Myers even suggested that someone should procure for him one of these blessed wafers, so that he could personally desecrate it.

Then the spam hit the fan. Thousands of comments and emails and demands for his expulsion and his firing and even death threats followed. Well, back and forth over several posts. One woman made international news for being fired for using a company computer to send her death threat.

Finally, Myers posted “The Great Desecration” beginning with “It is finished.” He discusses the way the church has used just the allegation of wafer misuse in history to spur mobs to mass murder (with specific examples). He posts a few of the more lucid (and publishable) denunciations of his proposed desecration, with commentary. And finally, he shows a picture of the desecration itself. Not only does he drive a rusty spike through the cracker (wondering in print if Jesus has a current tetanus shot), he nails it through the Koran and into one of Dawkins’ books, then artistically covered it all with the traditional banana peels and coffee grounds.

Desecrating the Koran was a suggestion made by many of his Catholic detractors, who suggested that he didn’t dare offend the Muslims, but only picks on Catholics (the group from whom he received the most death threats) because they are so kind and forgiving.

Desecrating Dawkins is to point out that he is not selectively suggesting that the Biblical injunction against worshipping images be used only against Judeo Christian churches. But that all icons be examined from the point of view that the symbol is not actually the object. Or to quote Korzybski, “The map is not the territory, the word is not the thing”.

Check out this video:  McCain is pointedly reminding the Wall Street Journal that media access isn’t free.  If you don’t write nice things about McCain, you might not get any story at all.

The accompanying article and video provide both the incident and the motive.   If reporter Elizabeth Holmes shapes up, maybe she can still get an invitation to McCain’s next barbecue for members of the media.

If the WSJ had any balls, it would publish an article describing this incident in detail, to show that McCain is a small-minded vindictive man.   The WSJ should also publish a detailed article conclusively demonstrating that McCain lacks the command of basic facts (and see here) necessary to serve as President.

To top it off, the WSJ should then conclusively argue, in an editorial, that being tortured as a prisoner or getting shot down several times in planes doesn’t qualify one to excel in any of the many tasks required of presidents.   Nor does dropping napalm on Vietnamese civilians in the 60’s prepare McCain to carry out any of the duties of President as spelled out in the U.S. Constitution.  Nor holding barbecues for the press.   Nor does it prepare one to be President that one refuses to release all of one’s military records or that one marries a rich woman who stands to benefit by McCain’s newly embraced policies for irresponsibly cutting taxes when the country is already deep in debt.  Nor does it prepare one to be President that one is the #1 most absent senator of the 110th Congress, having missed 61.8 percent of the votes.

Consider this comment regarding Barack Obama by Joan Walsh of Salon.com:

The only downside I can see right now is Obama being depicted as enjoying the adulation a little too much. After the speech, Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that he spoke with Obama this morning, and that “he seemed very up, very confident … He was bragging a little bit about sinking eight out of 10 three-pointers when he was with the troops this week. He even said he felt a little sorry for John McCain this week.” Alter is an Obama admirer, and presumably meant the Democratic nominee no harm, but I winced as I listened.

I was startled when I read this quote. Did Obama really say that he “felt a little sorry for John McCain? I know that Obama was speaking frankly. A lot of us who know that Obama would be a much better President have also felt a little sorry for John McCain, who is working the system hard in a rather pathetic way. Almost daily, he is making factual mistakes indicating that he is way too ignorant about how the world works to function as a leader. His approach would be to impose his limited view of the world upon the governed. It would be world-view largely unsupported by evidence, quite similar to what we’ve had for the past eight years.

Back to Obama’s quote, however. Daring to feel sorry for a white man is a battle cry for many bigots. I’m afraid that Obama’s comment is going to stir up a lot of people. Hearing it reminded me of a key line from the trial portrayed in the movie version of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

It was during that trial that Tom Robinson (a kind and decent black man who was being tried for rape and assault) had blurted out that he “felt a little sorry for his accuser, Mayella Ewell a young woman who had been beaten by her drunk father, who had transparently set up Mayella to lie in court to deflect blame from him to the innocent Tom.

Here’s an excerpt from the screenplay. The scene is (the innocent) Tom Robinson being, having just denied his involvement, being cross-examined by the state prosecutor:

Prosecutor: How come you so all fired anxious to do that woman’s chores?

Tom: Looks like she, she didn’t have nobody to help her. Like I said, she…

Prosecutor: With Mr. Ewell and seven children on the place? You did all this choppin’ and work out of sheer goodness, boy? You’re a mighty good fella, it seems. Did all that for not one penny?

Tom: Yes, sir. I felt right sorry for her. - She seemed…

Prosecutor: You felt sorry for her? A white woman? You felt sorry for her?

Led by the conniving prosecutor, Tom’s heart-felt comment instantly inflamed the jury of twelve white men. How dare a black man think of himself as so uppity that he dared to feel sorry for a beaten, poor, desperate white woman! After a brilliant argument by Atticus Finch on behalf of Tom, the jury nonetheless found Tom guilty, but it wasn’t on the basis of any evidence.

I hope American has moved on and that Barack Obama’s comment doesn’t inflame the far right (any more than it is already inflamed). Then again, it sometimes it doesn’t seem as though a lot of America has grown up much since the 1930’s. Based on some right-wing comments I’ve heard over the past year, there are only a few things bigoted people hate more than a black man, and one of those things is an uppity black man, one who dares to feel sorry for them, even when it is heartfelt.

If you buy your child an expensive and detailed toy based upon the latest new movie, you’ll end up with a toy that can be used in only one way and your child will quickly get bored with that toy. It’s happened over and over. I’ve seen it with my own children and with many of their friends. The solution of many parents is to replace that new toy with yet another new toy based upon yet another newly released movie, all with the same result.

If you find yourself buying your child all of these new fancy toys, you will also depriving your child of creative play. The importance of creative play is the focus of a new book by Susan Linn, The Case for Make-Believe (2008). Susan Linn is a psychologist and therapist based at Harvard. She is instrumental in running Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood. I’ve previously posted a video of an interview I arranged with Josh Golin of CCFC.

In her book, Susan Linn asks why there is so much interest in promoting expensive toys. The simple answer is that “Society on all levels conspires to keep children from playing; in a market-driven society, creative play is a bust. It just isn’t lucrative.”

Why isn’t creative play lucrative? It’s because satisfaction derived from creative play relies more on the child who’s playing than on the object with which the child is playing.

They can transform a blanket into a tent one day in a cave the next. A stick can be a magic wand, a sword, a light saber or a mast for a schooner. The toys that nurture the imagination–blocks, art supplies, dolls, and stuffed animals free of computer chips and links to media–can be used repeatedly and in a variety of ways. When it comes to make-believe, less really is more. In the United States, this means that nurturing creative play is inherently counter-cultural. It’s a threat to corporate profits.

These new toys aren’t designed for the purpose of being treasured for a lifetime. As Linn explains, “they are designed to sell. If interest wanes, so much the better–another version of the toy will soon be on the market.”

Linn explains that “play is in danger of extinction.” This is not sheer hyperbole. According to Linn, “play is linked to creativity and to mental health.” Creative play allows children to learn how to transport themselves to pretend worlds. Creative play “serves as an essential early experience of self reflection and expression.” In Linn’s experience, she can no longer assume that children even know how to play creatively. In her experience as a therapist, she repeatedly sees children trying to reenact scenes from TV shows and movies, “bringing nothing of their unique experience to their play.” All of this lack of creative play is exacerbated by the way in which parents so often over-schedule their children, leaving little or no time for creative play.

What are the specific benefits of creative play? Susan Lynn explains that creative play:

is inextricably linked to learning and creativity. The ability to play is central to our capacity to take risks, to experiment, to think critically, to act rather than react, to differentiate ourselves from our environment, and to make life meaningful. Children often use pretend play to reflect on their lives the way many adults use journal writing.

Near the end of her book, Lynn suggests that there’s no reason to buy electronic toys are toys based on media characters. She also stresses the importance of giving children lots of opportunities to play on their own. She suggests toys such as giant cardboard boxes or tents made out of sheets strung between two chairs. By strictly limiting a child’s access to television, one can use this newly found time to play games, read aloud, be silly, cook, do crafts, explore nature or dozens of other activities she recommends. She warns that some craft sets promote themselves as enhancing creativity, but some of them do nothing of the sort. Above all, she suggests investing in toys that promote open ended play. She recommends the website of Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children’s Entertainment (TRUCE) as a place where parents can learn to find age-appropriate toys that to promote open ended play.

Linn has special tips regarding traveling. Many people put DVD players in their cars or they hand children portable video games. Susan Linn warns that these screens seem to make traveling or waiting easier, but they do so at a price. They foster dependence on the screens to get children through the day–the children get a habit of needing to be amused through these gadgets all the time.

Based upon my experience as a parent, I think Susan Lynn really knows her stuff. In my experience, children will push hard to get you to buy them things or to amuse them as their personal entertainer. It’s happened over and over, in my experience, that when children are bored, they will get whiny until they realize that the adults around them are not going to tend to them–It is at that moment, just then their protests are loudest they get to work to amuse themselves. It’s a magic moment when children decide to start creating their own wonderful imaginary worlds devoid of adult input. It is in their own imaginary worlds that children learn how to communicate and engage in creative problem solving. For parents, the trick is to have the discipline to not jump so often to become the official entertainer of your children or to become the constant provider of new toys. The more parents do this, the less children will learn how to create their own play.

Also in my experience, it’s not good, in the long run, for parents to sit around applauding everything their child does. That can result in attention-addicted children who follow adults around to seek applause every minute of the day instead of being self-sufficient and emotionally centered. In my own experience, it is a parent’s job to appreciate rather than applaud. It’s difficult, though, to stay back and watch your child sometimes fail to figure things out. I’m not suggesting that parents should ignore their children. Far from it, parents should often spend extended quality time with their kids. But kids also need that time on their own to figure things out for themselves, without a parent-cheerleader and without a constant stream of expensive new toys to make them experience a false sense of success.  I’m concerned about this issue because it seems that many children are failing to become self-sufficient.  Here’s what Susan Linn has to say on this issue:

About 40 percent of college graduates are now moving back home after graduation.  They aren’t moving home, as would be the case in some cultures, to support their families.  They seem to be moving home to save money and to postpone having to take care of themselves.

The Case For Make Believe is a well written book with lots of common sense and market research buttressed by a good dose of science. I highly recommend it.  Linn’s book includes thoughtful discussions of other pressing issues regarding childhood education, including the ubiquitous violence found in toys and the Disney model of femininity.  What is the Disney model?  The “ultra-thin body types, their clothing and the stories they tell embody a commercialized, stereotypic image of beauty and womanhood.” (p. 175).

I’ll end this post with a presentation by a second thinker who has a somewhat different delivery, but a similar idea. This second thinker is George Carlin, who speaks about various problems concerning childhood. Listen closely to this video from “It’s Bad For Ya!,” his final performance before his sudden death in June. More specifically, in Part III of this seven part performance, go to the one minute mark and listen to his description of the ideal play toy for a child: the stick.

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Huffpo has it exactly right.   McCain won’t be helped by the images of his activities this week.

The GOP’s only hope for winning this election is to control the media and manufacture lots of falsehoods aimed at Barack Obama.

Psyblog has lots of useful and succinct articles on psychology. The writing, which often draws from newly released research published by psychological journals, really gets to the point. This article, “Ten Practical Uses for Psychological Research in Everyday Life,” contains a list of practical uses for psychology. I found myself reading each of the links and learning more than a thing or two along the way:

1. How to detect lies

2. How to make your smile more attractive, more trustworthy and less dominant

3. How to persuade others your opinion represents the whole group

4. How to have a refreshing holiday

5. How to avoid getting scammed

6. Using email to persuade

7. Find out if you’re satisfied with your relationship

8. Reduce your cholesterol levels

9. How to make friends with self-disclosure

10. Impress people with your knowledge of the Top Ten Psychology studies.

Psyblog is run by Jeremy Dean, a freelance writer.

Tonight I watched “It’s Bad For Ya,” George Carlin’s final nationally televised performance. The entire show is available on YouTube (Below is Part I of VII). The show was broadcast live on March 1, 2008, only a few months prior to Carlin’s death (due to a heart attack, on June 22, 2008).

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Carlin opened the show by announcing that he was 70 years old. In Parts I and II, he speaks bluntly about society’s failure to deal frankly with death. It’s impossible to watch this performance without feeling the irony. At one point, he states:

So don’t be afraid to get old. It’s a great time of life. You get to take advantage of people and you’re not responsible for anything! You can even shit in your pants!

He dissects many other topics, including law, religion, children, education and national pride. He shows no patience for the way our culture handles any of these issues. His performance gets especially dark when he asserts that there is essentially no hope for us, ecologically speaking—he predicts that in 40 or 50 more years, the entire planet will be a massive ball of pollution. At many points in the performance, it’s not easy to tell whether Carlin retains any personal optimism. Is his performance intentionally injected with hyperbole or is this really and truly what Carlin thinks. I suspected the latter, but I don’t really know.

I heard many gems during the performance (meaning that I heard many things with which I agree wholeheartedly). Here’s my favorite, this one delivered during the topic of society’s often-stated goal that “we should teach our children to read.”

It’s not important to get children to read. It’s much more important to teach children to question what they read. They should be taught to question everything. Everything they read and everything they hear. They should be taught to question authority . . .

Amen.

My family shared a vacation house with several other families this year.  One afternoon, one of my wife’s friends (a philosophy professor in his 40’s) was relaxing on the porch when I looked down and noticed his unusual right foot:

I found myself blurting out, “So tell me about your foot.”

He explained that his condition is known as “syndactylism, ” (which is Greek for together + finger).  It means “having two or more fingers or toes joined together.”  He looked me straight in the eye and announced, “I am a syndactylist.”

I pulled out my camera to grab a photo, while my embarrassed wife sternly pleaded, “Erich!  No!”   But how would I possibly pass up a scoop like this? The syndactylist explained that his big toe and second toe were wrapped in one skin ever since birth.   He explained that he has no functional deficit from this condition other than his inability to wear flip-flops.  Here’s a bit more on the condition.

To make the story a bit better, he explained that he was actually born with six toes (the sixth toe was between the current second and third toes).  The doctors “took care of that right away.”   He indicated that he is coping quite well in the non-syndactylist world in which he has found himself.  He also explained that each of us is a syndactylist, at least for awhile, while we are in the womb.   For most of us, though, the skin webbing surrounding our fingers and toes dissolves away.

As several of us were mulling around, actually starting to marvel the syndactylist’s special foot, a little girl, one of the daughters of another family walked through the porch, barefoot, and we noticed the she, too, was a syndactylist.

Based on my survey of the two syndactylists that I’ve now met, I would warn you that they all seem normal and they like ice cream, and that they could turn up anywhere, when you least expect it.

I caught this video at Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish. It was just too crazy to not post here too:

http://view.break.com/539758 - Watch more free videos

McCain, trying to score a few desperate points against Obama, gets the Iraq time line drastically wrong. CBS does its part to cover up fr McCain.

I spotted this beautiful progression of drawings on Reddit and decided to publish the original link, which features a short series of bulls drawn by Picasson in late 1945.   Beautiful drawings start with a full bodied bull and end with an incredibly simple and elegant version.

When I was a child, I used to hear people comment on Picasso’s cubism, suggesting that Picasso couldn’t draw realistically and that is why he drew those “strange” drawings.  I grew up in a Midwest suburb  that was  often rife with parochialism and ignorance!  I saw that this sleight aimed at Picasso wasn’t true years later with my own eyes when, in New York in about 1980, I viewed a huge series of Picasso’s work spanning his entire life.  The early drawings were phenomenally realistic.   That is what I was reminded of when I spotted this short series.

This sleight also reminds me that humans are fantastically good at making claims for which they have no evidence.

I knew something was up when, in the opening scene of the film, an actor was playing the guitar but he really knew how to handle that guitar.

“Once,” which was written and directed by John Carney, is a low-budget ($160,000) Irish love story that deservedly won a slew of awards. The film features musicians Glen Hansard (a first-rate musician who has played with the Irish rock band The Frames) and Markéta Irglová as struggling Dublin musicians who fall in love, creating the atmosphere for their encounters with the music that they wrote and performed both in the movie and in real life (all but one of the many songs performed during the movie were written and performed by Hansard and Irglová. Carney knew of Hansard because Carney had played bass guitar in a band with Hansard prior to becoming a film director.

Anyone who has ever had the opportunity to make high-quality music with someone with whom they have a romantic urge knows a secret that I’m a bit hesitant to share: playing music really can be better than sex. Director John Carney knew that the music-making between the two costars had to be the focus because, in this film, the music carried the romance on several levels. The intensity of the romance was palpable throughout the film, especially during an early scene where the costars “borrowed” a music store as a scene for their first jam.

My wife Anne sings and plays the flute (no, not at the same time!) and I play guitar and sing. We’ve performed together as musicians–we thus know a thing or two about the intersection between romance and music. We arranged for Netflix to send us this DVD. We watched it tonight and we both thought highly of it. We were astounded at how incredibly personal the film was. I didn’t know anything about the actors until after the video had finished playing, but then we watched some of the special features and were amazed. It was only then that I realized that Hansard had almost no acting experience prior to this film and that the beautiful Czech Markéta Irglová had absolutely no acting experience. As it turns out, Hansard recommended Irglová for the part. Prior to this project, Irglová and Hansard had worked together as musicians (she plays guitar and piano).

Consider this: How often do you see an award-winning film starring two adults with almost no acting experience? In an interview, director Carney claims that “anyone can act,” but that it is a matter of bringing it out. He succeeded in bringing out the costars’ inner-actors by carefully setting the moods for each scene, drawing on lots of improvising during the shooting and utilizing lots and lots of carefully crafted hand-held video.

Fate assisted Carney in bringing out the chemistry between the actors in “Once.” The 37-year-old Hansard and the 19-year-old Irglová started falling in love with each other while this film was being shot. Carney recognized one of his roles, then, as trying to disguise some of these intense natural feelings between the actors, rather than trying to concoct them. Of course, the film gives us some complications along the way, enough to keep the film interesting.

The end result was phenomenal, and it didn’t hurt that the music was so musical. I’m not trying to be silly with his comment. So very often, music is assembled and cranked out rather than performed from the heart. It is for this reason that there are many terrific musicians with basic musical skills who are better musicians than professionals with higher-level technical skills. The ability to play from the heart is thus the great leveler of musicians.

I certainly won’t spoil the plot for any of you who might want to rent this fine video. When you’re done watching it, though, I guarantee that you’ll think of the characters as real life people who are still living their lives across the Atlantic Ocean. This video seemed so real that the actors commented that they have been approached by quite a few people (subsequent to the film’s release) who asked about how things were going these days, as though this fictional drama were a real-life documentary. Not that anyone could blame them for the confusion . . .

I just finished reading a terrifically clear and concise article on measuring “the economy” by Jonathan Rowe, published by Harpers. It is entitled “Our Phony Economy.”

Please allow me to set the scene. Haven’t you wondered why politicians and the news media so often obsess about the rising and falling of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)? After all, this simple-looking number measure rises with sad expenses, such as the need to put ailing Grandma into a nursing home and useless expenses, such as your neighbor recently getting addicted to gambling. When such sad or useless events occur, the GDP goes up and the media and the politicians react by applauding as though a good thing happened when, really, a bad thing happened.

Further, when we learn to save money by gardening in our own back yard or by making our homes more energy efficient, the GDP goes down–it looks like a bad thing happened when, really, a very good thing happened.

Bottom line is that the media and politicians have this fetish for an economic measure (the GDP) that is always misleading and often nonsensical. How is it that our media and government leaders ever started touting the GDP as a meaningful measure of anything? I’ve often wondered this. Why do our leaders continue to rely on the GPD? Jonathan Rowe wonders about this.

If you only read one article on economics this year, make Rowe’s article the one. Reading it will only take you about 10 minutes. If you’re like me, Rowe’s revelations will be make you wonder how so many economic “experts” can be so ignorant and misguided. It will make you wonder about the other fundamental ways in which politicians and economists have totally mischaracterized the basics regarding this country’s financial health (actually here are some). Here’s a sample of Rowe’s writing, but really, go read the whole thing. You’ll find yourself nodding in agreement the whole way through:

That term “the economy”: what it means, in practice, is the Gross Domestic Product–a big statistical pot that includes all the money spent in a given period of time. If the pot is bigger than it was the previous quarter, or year, then you cheer. If it isn’t bigger, or bigger enough, then you call Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke up here and ask him to do some explaining. The what of the economy makes no difference in these councils. It never seems to come up. The money in the big pot could be going to cancer treatments or casinos, violent video games or usurious credit-card rates. It could go toward the $9 billion or so that Americans spend on gas they burn while they sit in traffic, or the billion plus that goes to such drugs as Ritalin and Prozac that schools are stuffing into kids to keep them quiet in class. The money could be the $20 billion or so that Americans spend on divorce lawyers each year, or the $41 billion on pets, or the $5 billion on identity theft, or the billions more spent to repair property damage caused by environmental pollution. The money in the pot could betoken social and environmental breakdown–misery and distress of all kinds. It makes no difference. You don’t ask. All you want to know is the total amount, which is the GDP. So long as it is growing then everything is fine.

I am not talking about an obscure technical measure. This is not stuff for the folks in the back room. I am talking about what you mean when you use that term “the economy.” Few words induce such a reverential hush in these halls.

Apply Rowe’s wisdom to the use of fossil fuels for a big eye-opener:

It sounds incredible, but when this nation drills its oil and mines its coal, the national accounts treat this as an addition to the national wealth rather than a subtraction from it. The result is like a car with a gas gauge that goes up as the fuel tank empties.

After reading even this much, are you now confident that an increasing GDP is highly ambiguous? So am I.

Thinking of people who insist on relying on the GDP reminds me about the old joke about the drunk who is looking for his lost keys under the streetlight, even though he lost them elsewhere.   When asked why he persisted in looking under the streetlight, he replied, “because it’s easier to see over here.”

GDP gives us an easy number, but it’s far from meaningful.  It would make much more sense to rely on an economic indicated that measured progress, not merely money exchanging hands.   One of those measures is the GPI, the Genuine Progress Indicator. Another measure is the subjective well-being indicator (SWB).

What if we measured the economy accurately?  What would it do for us.   According to Democracy Cell Project, “If as Americans we could measure well-being as a basis for success, rather than just size of the economy, there would be more support for reforms that we really desperately need.”

This is a favorite spot of mine. It’s called the Grand Basin and it’s located in the middle Forest Park in the City of St. Louis, Missouri. I enjoyed this image of the area because it contains views of some rather large objects (like the St. Louis Art Museum and a lake/fountains in front of the Museum, as well as tiny cracks on the pavement, where I took this photo (approximately 300 yards from the Museum).  I placed the camera on the ground and let it auto-shoot this scene.

I come to this spot on occasion in order to write while the sun sets. From here it’s about a 5-mile bicycle ride back to my home.